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This is an interesting misfire -- an attempt in 1962 by Doris Day and her producer husband to revive the grand MGM musical.
They chose to adapt a legendary spectacle from 1935, which combined circus acts, a book by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht
and a score by Rogers and Hart into a giant arena show, which did well but not well enough to earn back its enormous cost.
The production of the film is impressive, but Stephen Boyd, as the romantic leading man, is a black hole at the center of
it, and Doris Day delivers bland renditions of the great Rogers and Hart songs. The clown performance coda undermines the
dramatic climax of the story. Jimmy Durante, who was in the original show, and Martha Raye are fitfully amusing as the comic
second leads, and there are some charming evocations of circus days long past, but you can see why this movie failed to catch
on with audiences in 1962. There's just something half-hearted about it all.
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