1952 Best Picture:
The Greatest Show on Earth

Competition: High Noon, Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet Man

Other Winners:
Best Actor: Gary Cooper, High Noon 
Best Actress: Shirley Booth, Come Back Little Sheba
Best Supporting Actor: Anthony Quinn, Viva Zapita
Best Supporting Actress: Gloria Graham, The Bad and the Beautiful
Best Director: John Ford, The Quiet Man

Cast: Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, Goria Grahame, James Stewart

Storyline: Cecil B. DeMille directed and produced this extravaganza about circus performers.  Hutton plays the star trapeze artist who is miffed when the owner brings on 'The Great Sebastian,' an acrobat who can wow a crowd, and guarantee a profitable season.  They one-up each other in the ring, and fall in love behind the scenes.  Heston plays the owner of the circus, and Stewart, a lovable clown with a mysterious past.

Did it deserve to win: Heck, no!  Two great westerns, High Noon and The Quiet Man were both nominated, and High Noon should have won.  

The Greatest Show On Earth is all pomp, with very little pizzazz.  A great cast seems wasted, and  DeMille seems hell-bent on spectacle over substance.  One notable film wasn't even nominated for an Oscar.  Singing in the Rain is ranked as the best musical ever, and often ranks in the top ten lists of best films. 

Critique: The film may be regarded as one of the worst choices for Best Picture, ever. Typical of the happy-go-lucky fifties fluff films, complete with the bleach blonde virgin (Hutton), this film has become very dated.  

But don't totally write it off.  Cecil B. DeMille is a master of spectacle, and he does manage to capture what is now, a lost 'art'.  The backdrop of the film takes center ring, with the best moments of the film being the actual circus acts.  

Hutton and Wilde do many of their own stunts on the trapeze, a true accomplishment, because those scenes are among the best.   

Best Scene:  The man on the flying trapeze!  DeMille is best known for creating big movies, with lots of spectacle, but in the silent era, he frequently did romantic, sexual comedies with stars like Gloria Swanson.   He captures some fun trapeze work in this film.  Hutton and Wilde, competing on high wires, is lots of fun. 

Behind the Scenes: The House Un-American Activities Committee, led by the evil Joe McCarthy, was in full force that year, as in years previous.  It was suggested that High Noon was blacklisted because its writer, Carl Foreman, refused to testify at the hearings, and later included comparisons to the actual witch hunts in his film. 

The Greatest Show On Earth was a popular film at the box office.  It took in more than 12 million dollars in its first year, making it the biggest box-office grosser for the next twenty years. 

DeMille insisted that his actors learn their craft.  This posed a problem for Cornel Wilde who was deathly afraid of heights. 

Cornel Wilde was a champion fencer, and a member of the US Olympic team.  He left the sport to pursue acting, just prior to the 1936 Berlin Games.

Also in 1952: 

February 15: The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II takes place after the death of King George.

July 26:  Eva Peron dies.

November 6:  Eisenhower wins the election with a landslide victory.

December 15:  Chris Jorgenson becomes the first person to undergo a sex change operation.  

"I was the highest paid straight woman in the business!"  Dorothy Lamour

A poorly developed love-triangle develops between the three lead characters.

Grahame can't keep her hands off Hutton's men.