Awards
At the 25th Academy Awards, the movie won Oscars for Best Picture (earning that recognition over films such as High Noon and The Quiet Man and the classic Singin' in the Rain) and for Best Story. It received nominations for Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design, Color.
Many consider this film among the worst to have ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The American film magazine Premiere placed the movie on its list of the 10 worst Oscar winners and the British film magazine Empire rated it #3 on their list of the 10 worst Oscar winners. It has the second lowest spot on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 81 films to win Best Picture.
There have been allegations that the film's Best Picture Oscar was due to the political climate in Hollywood in 1952. Senator Joseph McCarthy was pursuing Communists at the time, and Cecil B. DeMille was one of his supporters; another Best Picture nominee, High Noon, was produced by Carl Foreman, who would soon be on the Hollywood blacklist.
Another likely reason The Greatest Show On Earth was voted Best Picture of 1952 was that it was seen as a "last chance" vote for Cecil B. DeMille, to honor him for a lifetime of film making going well back into the silent movie era. DeMille's best work had been done before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was created. It may be that the members of the Academy (which included many veterans of the silent era) felt that as an elder statesman of Hollywood, he deserved the honor even if films like The Quiet Man, High Noon, Singin' in the Rain, and Ivanhoe were seen as better than The Greatest Show On Earth.
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