CHS
Back Yard

Toby Tyler.  I am a big fan of Gene Sheldon and really appreciate his performance here as Poppa Schultz the clown.  His silk routine is a perfect example of a Whiteface/August duo.  Also, Walt Disney purchased and restored circus wagons for this film.  The wagons were then used for the Mickey Mouse Club Circus when Disneyland first opened.  Disney also rented them out to other studios for use in their circus movies.  Eventually those wagons were donated to the Circus World Museum.

Additional responses from other circus-related Facebook groups:

Harry Kingston

The Greatest show on Earth is by far the greatest circus EVER made. De Mille captured the circus on rails and in Technicolor that has stood the test of time. When I see it, it brings back many great memories of the way it was and a few tears as well. D… 

I have watched Greatest show many times and one scene De Mille made a mistake in. The wreck scene and an aluminum pole comes though a Pullman car. The aluminum poles are in another section of the train and not in the Pullman section.

Sonja Barta - The Greatest Show on Earth

Dan Lyon - Circus World - my favourite circus movie poster!

William Duncan - The Greatest Show on Earth

Art Durocher - Roustabout

Mark Turley

The Greatest Show on Earth then the Big Circus, then Trapeze, First of May Marx Brothers at the Circus, the Greatest Showman, both John Wayne, and the new one.

James Cole - Circo

Adam Sutton - Toby Tyler!!

Izzy Patrowicz - Trapeze

Clayton Cox - La Strada

Although The Greatest Show on Earth will always hold a special place for me, the PBS Documentary The Circus  it is a pretty amazing history of the American Circus from its earliest days until 1956. 

DeMille for capturing the Ringling circus of the early 1950s and PBS for an historical record of the American circus.