If you like circuses, John Wayne or Claudia Cardinale, then this noisy, gaudy and faintly numbing panorama of circus life is the film for you. It's certainly a handsome saga with the accent on spectacle and sentiment, even if it tends to sit back and say, 'Aren't I a wonderful show? ' and let the audience do the rest. Cardinale, all bosom and sparkling teeth, has never used her native Italian charm to greater effect, and puts poor Rita Hayworth (at some disadvantage from the start in playing her mother) in the shade. But the film is really one big circus from start to finish. Wayne did much of his own stuntwork in the fire scenes and spent a couple of days in bed with smoke-clogged lungs for his trouble.

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