Monday, August 18, 2008

Moonlight Melodies 1951 (From Dominic Yodice)


moonlight melodies 1951, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Hi Buckles,
Here's another group of Ringling floats. They are from the 1951 spec -"Circus Serenade".
Everyone should recognize them from De Mille's "The Greatest Show On Earth".
Dom

Posted by Buckles at 8/18/2008 06:23:00 AM

7 comments:

Mike Naughton said...

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C06E2DB153BE23BBC4952DFB7668389649EDE


Copy, paste and click on the above for the original movie review from the New York Times for the GSOE, January 1952.

18 August, 2008 08:43
Mike Naughton said...

Trivia--

Music for the "Royal Parade" as it is called in the script is the BEAUTIFUL GALATHEA OVERTURE (1865) by
Franz von Suppe.

18 August, 2008 08:58
Mike Naughton said...

That's all, ladies and gentlemen, that's all. Come again to the greatest show on earth. Bring the children. Bring the old folks. You can shake the sawdust off your feet, but you can't shake it outta your heart. Come again, folks. The Greatest Show on Earth. Come again.

-----

18 August, 2008 09:10
Anonymous said...

...Amen.
:-)
CP

18 August, 2008 11:19
Anonymous said...

Mike,
Re the music used in the spec. Paramount used a lot of the music that they owned the rights too.
The movie spec music bore very little resemblance to the actual Ringling spec music.
For instance, when the American Beauties float was going around the track, Betty Hutton was singing "Only A Rose". The actual spec music was "You're A Grand Old Flag".
The music for Moonlight Melodies was actually "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon". The film music was a portion of "Moonlight and Shadows". Fittingly from Dorothy Lamour's debut movie "The Jungle Princess".
Moonlight Melodies and American Beauties are my all time favorite Miles White designed floats. Although the 1952 payoff Wine Glass float runs a very close second. That will be included in the 1952 group I send to Buckles.
Dom

18 August, 2008 11:27
Harry Kingston said...

Dom,
Thank you so much for the beautiful color photos of the Ringling floats.
As I look at these photos I can hear the music playing as they rolled by.
This just made my day and thank you again for sharing them with us fans of teh circus.
Harry

18 August, 2008 11:40
Mike Naughton said...

Dom-

Many thanks and very interesting.

18 August, 2008 16:44

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