 Eric Beheim’s recent series sparked some comments about what parts of DeMille’s Greatest Show on Earth were filmed in Hollywood. Adding to the information is this page from a guidebook for the World Jungle Compound. The caption for the top left photo reads “Big ‘Emma’ with Gloria Grahame in the great train wreck scene from ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, a Cecil B. DeMille Technicolor epic, starring Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame.” A former Ringling elephant, Emma was acquired from the old Kelly-Miller show by the World Jungle Compound in 1947. Her presence indicates that the movie’s train wreck scene was filmed in a California studio.  |
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
From Richard Flint #1
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5 comments:
There were at least two circus train wreck activities, one involving a 1" scale set of cars that were largely acquired in recent years by Howard Tibbals and repaired by Mac MacDougall.
There was also a "real life" arrangement in which some actual former Hagenbeck-Wallace wagons, including at least one Corporation cage, were involved.
Didn't Harold Dunn make the 1" models used in the movie? And were the H-W wagons ones kept at Thousand Oaks?
The train wreck aftermath sequence was filmed at Paramount.
Animals just don't seem to read as much today as they used to.
Yes, the train models were made by Harold along with the tents used in the blow down footage. Hope we could see some of that footage someday.
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