Billy Rose’s Jumbo *** (1962, Doris Day, Jimmy Durante, Stephen Boyd, Martha Raye, Dean Jagger) – Classic Movie Review 10,156

Roll up, roll up for smashing performances from effervescent Doris Day (as travelling circus aerialist and trick rider Kitty Wonder), Jimmy Durante (as the circus’s gambling owner and clown Pop Wonder) and Martha Raye (as Lulu the fortune teller) in director Charles Walters’s jumbo-sized (it is over two hours) 1962 circus yarn with music, Billy Rose’s Jumbo [Jumbo].

This big-budget ($5,256,000) movie features a nice elephant, lovely Richard Rodgers (music) and Lorenz Hart (lyrics) songs, and excellent dance numbers well staged by choreographer/ second unit director Busby Berkeley.

It’s a shame about Sidney Sheldon’s lame screenplay, with a tedious plot about the takeover of the debt-ridden, going-bankrupt Wonder Circus, based on the play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Dean Jagger plays greedy John Noble, the owner of the Wonder Circus’s main competitor, the Noble Circus, who wants to take over the Wonder organisation, especially the main attraction, Jumbo the wonder elephant. Stephen Boyd plays career circus employee Sam Rawlins, hired by Pop. Though the suspicious Kitty does not want to hire him, she and Sam start to fall in love, but he is hiding a secret.

Billy Rose’s Jumbo is shot at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 10202 West Washington Blvd, Culver City, California.

Also in the cast are Joseph Waring, Lynn Wood, Charles Watts, James Chandler, Wilson Wood, Norman Leavitt, Robert Burton, John Hart, Roy Engel, Jack Boyle, Robert Williams, Sue Casey, Fred Cobey, Bill Hines, Otto Reichow, Billy Barty, Ralph Lee, Paul Wexler and Grady Sutton.

The 1935 musical play of Billy Rose’s Jumbo opened on 16 November 1935 and ran for 233 performances. It was the final show at New York City’s Hippodrome Theatre, torn down for a parking lot.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,156

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