Themes: Fighting the System, Love Triangles, Circuses & Carnivals
Main Cast: Doris Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante, Martha Raye, Dean Jagger
Release Year: 1962
Country: US
Run Time: 125 minutes
Plot
Inasmuch as the spectacular Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart Broadway musical Jumbo was written in 1935, this 1962 film version can't help but seem a little quaint. Still, the film features the original production's star Jimmy Durante, energetically recreating his stage role as circus owner Pop Wonder; it is Durante's bravura performance that saves the film from dullness. Threatened with foreclosure, Pop Wonder and his pretty daughter Kitty (Doris Day) put their fates in the hands of go-getter Sam Rawlins (Stephen Boyd). What they don't know is that Sam is the son of Pop's biggest rival (Dean Jagger), and he's been sent to undermine the Wonder Circus. It goes without saying that Sam turns the tables on his dad, thereby saving the day and winning Kitty's hand. Martha Raye shows up as Lulu, a fortune teller who can't figure out what's going to happen next (funny, we can). And of course there's Jumbo the elephant, who figures into the film's funniest scene (as well as one of Jimmy Durante's most celebrated punchlines). Old MGM musical hands Charles Walters and Busby Berkeley share directing chores, but somehow the film hasn't the panache of their earlier work. Happily, most of the Rodgers-Hart songs are retained, including "My Romance" and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"-not to mention a few Rodgers-Hart tunes borrowed from other show, e.g. "This Can't Be Love". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A throwback to an earlier, simpler era, Billy Rose's Jumbo is a moderately entertaining musical, the slender plot of which cannot support the elephantine proportions of its production. The spectacle is certainly impressive; a lot of money was spent on re-creating some marvelous circus acts and settings, but they only seem to point up how skimpy and dull the screenplay is. While the musical numbers are bright and peppy, too much of the dialogue scenes are dull, and the pacing lags. Even perennially perky Doris Day seems a little lacking in energy. Fortunately, the Rodgers and Hart score is glorious, and well served by Day, Martha Raye and Jimmy Durante, whose rendition of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" is delightful. Stephen Boyd looks good but is terribly wooden, and seems visibly uncomfortable during many of the musical moments. Fortunately, Raye and especially Durante provide enough comic moments to help make up for Boyd's lifelessness. Charles Walters' direction is hesitant, but Busby Berkeley's staging of the musical numbers - especially the opening, with its dizzying final shot -- is first rate. As a result of Jumbo's box office failure, Day was passed over for lead roles in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and The Sound of Music. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
The title came from the original Broadway show on which the film was based, and which opened on November 16, 1935, and was the last musical produced at the New York Hippodrome before it was torn down in 1939. Billy Rose produced the original stage version, and stipulated that if a film version was ever made, he would have to be credited in the title, even if he were not personally involved with the film.
Despite the fact that the score contained such Rodgers and Hart standards as "My Romance" and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", neither the original play or the film were especially successful. The film was Doris Day's last screen musical.
On 2 April2007, Robert Osborne of TCM, introducing the MGM film Fearless Fagan (1952) directed by Stanley Donen, said that Donen was due to direct Jumbo right after Singin' in the Rain in 1952. However, MGM decided the script wasn't ready, and Jumbo wasn't filmed until 1962 with a different director and stars.
