Big Show

A mysterious stranger named "Bill" is invited to join a Wild West show after he saves the life of Ruth Gordon, the elephant rider. Oil baron Norman Brackett, a friend of the circus owner, is interested in Ruth and has even asked her to marry him. He is shocked to see Bill, who is actually his brother and the only man who knows his fortune is built on swindling innocent landowners during World War I. With Ruth starting to show interest in Bill, Brackett now has two reasons to silence his brother once and for all. But the tycoon didn't count on Bill's circus family, who won't let one of their own be taken without a fight…

Bearing no connection to the 1936 Gene Autry picture of the same name, The Big Show was made to promote the "Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show", a traveling circus show with a Western theme that went back to at least 1907. The three Miller brothers - Joseph, George Jr., and Zack - financed the movie themselves, in hopes of improving dwindling attendance at their shows. Sadly, making a movie may not have been the best idea, with the Millers reporting losses of 9,970 the year The Big Show was released. By 1931, the Millers, hit hard by the Great Depression, were completely out of business. With most of the movie devoted to animal acts and roping tricks, The Big Show is more valuable as a pictorial record of a lost part of Americana than for its slight storyline. Since the focus was hardly on drama, big names weren't needed - John Lowell was a "B" player who mostly appeared in oaters like Arizona Days (1928) with Bob Custer and Fighters of the Saddle (1929) with Art Acord. The actress playing his love interest, Evangeline Russell, was actually his daughter, and bizarrely, this wasn't the only time this happened - father and daughter were often paired together romantically in low-budget movies that were also written by Evangeline's mother, scenarist Lillian Case Russell. Mrs. Russell claimed that this casting added undue "incest to injury." (1926)

Upplagd i sortimentet: 31 december, 2024