I was so taken by the two 9-minute You Tube previews I saw, that I have very high hopes for this documentary from American Experience, a long-time leader in such fare for PBS.
The overwhelming imagery throughout is of IMMENSITY. Immensity of tents, of parades, of surging crowds, here and in Europe when James A. Bailey took Barnum & Bailey abroad. That he stayed there five years suggests a towering reception at the ticket wagons he could not resist. Of course, when he returned to America, he had five brothers named Ringling, now a formidable force, facing him.
Debbie Walk eloquently gives Al Ringling due credit for the primary role he played, with his brothers, in making their mark as circus kings. P.T. Barnum seems properly placed here as sideshow king and ballyhoo genius.
You see the trains clanging in. You see the mass of humanity spreading the canvas, raising it high, and the locals on the sidelines, captured and enthralled by it all, believers without issues or hesitations in this once great and magical and very American spectacle. I almost cried, so moved by vivid scenes of what the American circus was in its heyday. No wonder, the program is said to end with the fall of the last Ringling big top in Pittsburgh, 1956.
How will the rest hold up? I am guessing very well, as long as they don't get side tracked filtering an emphatically populist form of entertainment through PC-obsessive analysis. This is not a story best told by self-serving academics.
The Big Show comes your way Monday night!
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