Winter Quarters #1 (From Eric Beheim)

DeMille began filming GSOE at Ringling-Barnum’s Sarasota winter quarters on January 31, 1951 and was there through March 19th. Rather than having his second unit obtain the winter quarters footage and then back-projecting it in behind his stars on a Hollywood sound stage, DeMille brought them to Sarasota and photographed them outdoors, interacting with actual circus personnel & animals and working on, around, and in the show’s equipment. The bulky Technicolor cameras, lights, sound recording equipment, etc. made all this location filming a formidable and expensive undertaking. The footage that was obtained, however, is now priceless and we can all be thankful that DeMille decided to do it this way. (The “Be a Jumping Jack” sequence is one GSOE “exterior” that WAS filmed on a sound stage. And some scenes with the leading players were clearly filmed in front of a process screen. But a goodly amount of GSOE’s footage was actually filmed on location in Sarasota or under the big top in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.) Here are a few frame enlargements from scenes filmed in Sarasota 60 years ago. (Your comments as to who and what are being shown will be welcomed by the rest of us.)