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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