Humphrey Bogart, Managing Editor ... Old Movie Addresses Timely Media Issue with "Read All About It!" Force

Movie Review: Deadline U.S.AThis 1952 film in which Humphrey Bogart plays a crusading managing editor as his paper, The Day, is about to be sold, has finally made it to TCM, and it’s more than worthy of prime time attention. The issues about the critical important of journalism that it raises, that in fact propel the story of a great newspaper being sold against the will of the wife of its late publisher, resonate perhaps more poignantly today than they did back at a time when daily broadsheets were taken for granted.Much of the film was shot in the press rooms of the New York Daily News, and the passionate scripting by Richard Brooks reminds us of how journalism can expose and challenge and rally the populace to demand correction action from...

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A Tale of Two Circus Museums: Popcorn, Politics & Patronage ...

Museum: “A building, place, or institution devoted to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, or artistic value.”If any place in this country deserves to host circus history, surely that place is Baraboo, Wisconsin. This is where America’s most celebrated circus dynasty, the Ringling Brothers, was born and came of glorious age. On the grounds of what would later become the Circus World Museum, the five Ringlings worked and argued and innovated, plotted how to compete against and eventually buy out Barnum & Bailey, signed contracts and repainted wagons, built a huge rail repair barn of daunting industrial magnitude. That is where it all happened.Today,...

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Sunday L'Amyx Scrambler: Circus World Bans Winter, Axes Ace Archivist ... Gardens Grow More Weeds .... Barbette's Lip Lives On ...

Post Update, Monday Morning: How sad to have to revise this post. I just learned from two comments herein that Erin Foley was let go. What an inexplicable loss. Politics? I found her to be a total pro. Let's not forget that under HER direction, the Ringling-Barnum Archives, for far too many years horded over exclusively by a good old boys club, were finally opened to ALL researchers. Does Museum Director Freese have any idea how significant that action alone was? I am waiting to see if she gets replaced by the good old boys and just how open those Ringling-Barnum Archives remain. This development merits further investigation.Sad news to hear that Circus World Museum's exhibits won't be open during the winter, but hear this, in the chilly off months often they draw only 7 or eight people a...

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Sunday Morning Many Seasons Ago with John and Henry Ringling North ...

"Through letters from many individuals, wide editorial comment from the nation's press and direct expressions from the country's Army, Navy and political leaders, it has been made clear that the public wants The Greatest Show on Earth to carry on during war time. Everyone can not shoulder a gun, nor is everyone expected to. Many millions must work at home, in factory, field and office to supply and maintain our armies and our fleets. These millions must have diversion when released from their labors, and so far it has been our duty and privilege to help in providing such diversion ...Hard and trying days are ahead for all of us, but such prospects have never before chilled American spirit or stopped American initiative, and we feel that as...

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The Morning Midway: Can Cirque du Soleil "Save" Vegas ...

This from CNN's Don Simon: As a vast new hotel-condo-everything else complex called City Center is about to dump six thousand new rooms onto an already depressed market, the question is -- will it lure new visitors to Nevada or only drain the other hotels? And they are wondering if the new Elvis Presley Cirque-produced bash will pull in a rebirth of tourism dollars. This following a 22 month decline in business, and with City Center having been barely able to raise construction costs. One of its hard-pressed sponsors is Dubai World, currently unable to meet its debts.Can Cirque du Soleil save Las Vegas? Believe it or not, that was a question framed by Simon to a local official.The betting and entertainment capitol has suffered 22 straight months of declining gaming revenues. Unemployment...

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The Morning Midway: Wintuk’s Growing Charm ... A Feld Press Flack Kindly Recalls the Fun ... Fabric Flyers Keep Falling ...

Wintuk on the Rise? I took a look at some recent reviews of Cirque du Soleil’s third season at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, where Wintuk, a show designed for holiday-happy moppets, seems to be growing in luster and charm. That kindly supporter of all things circus, The New York Times, offered a more affirmative review of this latest return visit. “Though the plot is little more than an excuse to move from act to act, the performances are invariably impressive,” wrote Ken Jaworowski. Okay, I am falling too; were I back there, I would love to give Wintuk a chance. Seems it has a simple yet doable “story” premise, good-sounding acts and the big snowfall payoff ... Talking Cirque, the pre-Broadway shakedown in the Windy City of its...

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Sunday Morning with Gabriel Heatter: "Give Me the Circus" ...

Preface: News that Circus Vargas continues to offer free tickets to out-of-work families inspired me to recall this wonderful article written by the late American radio commentator Gabriel Heatter, revered for his morale-boosting rhetoric during some of the nation's darkest hours in the depths of Word War II. This article appeared in (and was likely written for) the 1943 Ringling-Barnum program magazine -- SD."We have heard a good deal about that word MORALE and its importance to us all. Put me down for the circus as the greatest morale tonic of all. Give me the circus to make me feel young again in spirit. Give me the circus and the laughter of children and the whole parade of wonders to make me realize life is good to live and worth living...

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Kudos, Jeers & Tears: Still Defying “Dying” Predictions, Circuses Shine (Sort of) in ‘09 ... So Long, Farewell, Henry Edgar

Pardon me for chirping eternal, but whatever you have to say about our battered big tops, virtually all of them finished out the season, shook the mud off their boots, maybe turned their penny profits into Zero percent CDs, and are back in the barn gearing up and fearing up to do the same all over again in 2010. Oh, are they brave.From sketchy information I have at hand (isn’t it always), I hereby happily state — or provide free press agentry to all — that customer turnouts were probably somewhat better than the tour before. Count that a good omen. Before listing some high and low lights of the season just wrapping up (not a comprehensive survey, I must warn you, but based on the circuses I saw and reviews or reports I have read about some of the others), let me blow the whistle loud...

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A Magnificent Classroom on PBS about Philosophy and Justice

He is a thoroughly engaging professor possessing a rare gift of clarity, who quotes from the great philosophers (Kant and Aristotle, among others) in a challenging discourse on how to debate and decide the morality of contemporary issues. His manner is both instructive and generously respectful. He engages his students in congenial exchanges. And now, thanks to the TV camera, we are there too. How richly satisfying it is to vicariously attend a class at Harvard.His name is Michael J. Sandel. A wonderful new PBS series televising his lectures is tilted "Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?" And, oh, what a right departure it is from all of the ersatz self-help gurus whose slick presentations before tidy little audiences of doting admirers...

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Reviewing Cirque du Soleil OVO: Circus and Music Soar; Storyline Lays an Egg

Review of OVO from Cirque du SoleilSan Francisco, November 29Tickets: $65.00-$250.00 Bravo, bugs of the big top!The “wow” factor of authentic circus is abundantly on display at this latest offering from Cirque du Soleil. OVO is a brilliantly scored work of cold seductive power, perhaps a little too cold and faceless for some, that just misses the mark of a true masterpiece, blame a fatally directed second half.The stage seems to be set, pre show, with the entrance of figures in protective gear and gadgets, wandering slowly, apprehensively into a tent of gigantic cobwebs and wild nocturnal sounds of nature. Are they agents on a mission to suppress or eradicate creepy crawly things? Oddly, the atmosphere begins to feel more like an outer...

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Sunday Morning, Looking Back -- A Lesson Facing Cirque du Soleil on a Banana Shpeel: When Circus and Theatre Collide, One Must Die

This first appeared on November 27, 2009Cold in Chicago. Critically cold. Cold as out-of-down doom for a Broadway bound show in deep deep trouble. This one is a Cirque du Soleil production called Banana Shpeel, and it's being tried out prior to a New York premiere in February. Originally billed, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune by Chris Jones, as a “distinctive fusion of vaudeville, clowning and musical comedy” (did we not get that in Gene Kelly’s lavishly ill-fated ClownAround?), this was to be the company’s auspicious foray onto the legit stage.Going into rehearsals, they had the talent to do theatre. Songs by Laurence O’Keefe (Legally Blond). Neon stars like Annaleigh Ashford and Michael Longoria to sing them. But the...

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Sunday Morning Memories: I Still See the Magic, Still Hear the Music ...

Cool cool day here in Oakland. Looking over bits and pieces getting ready to brighten up (or dull down) this post, past and present march side by side in my many-crowded brain. Beatty may crack his whip. OVO from Cirque du Soleil, yet to be seen in SF, may charm -- or fool ... On the lots and on the blogs, images of yesterday and today parade in crazy juxtapositions keeping alive a dialogue inside my dithering brain: What is circus? A photo of Otto Griebling on Margaret's Circus Anonymous blog brings me to a late breaking realization: Most lovably amusing come-in clown I’ve ever seen. So lucky to have been there. Talk about characters, which is what the best clowns are. Otto was so close to real I’m still not sure he wasn’t just a harmless...

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Circus Performers Who Blog From the Inside: Of What Value Are They? What Risks Do They Take?

A most interesting issue of the moment that is unlikely to go away anytime soon is the potential value to the consumer and researcher of the insider blog. As Kelly-Miller Circus manager James Royal views this new medium for instant expression with an unlimited reach, “In the past, circus people have tended not to be reticent in expressing their opinions. The only change in the present is that these opinions are made public on blogs.”And, boy, what a difference that makes.Renee Storey Checks In:While at present big top blogging is unlikely to influence, one way or the other, the masses who but tickets to circuses (traffic on the sites appears confined to the insular circus community), it does have critical long-term ramifications for the owners....

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Friday Fliparounds: China's Emerging Greatest Show on Earth ... A Tawdry Bio on Cirque King Guy Laliberte Fails to Deliver, Says Bloomberg ...

A terrific new Big Apple Circus YouTube teaser left me charmed by one act in particular — two wry Chinese guys, the Long Twins, who end up in two barrels cavorting in a very funny manner. Comedy from China? Once seriously ground bound, their crack acrobats are more and more flying high, and now they are clowning it up or down, too. What next — a dog act that doesn’t end up on somebody’s plate, ho ho? I am starting to see a Buddha big top. All they need are a few animals. I share this remarkable insight with friend Boyi, and he tells me of a very clever monkey who performed for him years ago in his village. The charming chimp did “flips,” dressed up and walked like a human and then “passed a tray around” for donations. Okay, so maybe...

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Broadway’s Cruel Reversals Tumble, Humble Once-Invincible Neil Simon. Is Disney Next? ...

What a breath taking shock to discover that Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, greeted in revival by a slate of glowing notices. closed in just one week. Repeat: one week.Simon, once the king of comedy along the Great White Way, told a reporter how he was “dumbfounded after all these years.” Indeed, what happened to his revered play feels almost like a public assassination. The New York Times described it as “one of the biggest commercial flops on Broadway in recent memory.”“I still don’t know how Broadway works, or what to make of our culture,” said the humbled 82-year-old author of numerous hit shows, among them The Odd Couple.And now, another planned Neil Simon revival, Broadway Bound, is no longer Broadway bound, nixed, too, for lack...

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