It's fashionable when talking about movie of the year winners to address what films were beaten out in the race for particular awards. The practice surely began with the original Oscars presentation in 1928 and has continued through today with literally millions of lounge chair judges at cross-purposes with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In certain years this discussion easily eclipses any reasonable criticism of Oscar winners in favor of celebrating the defeated foe. In other years, though, this sideline conversation is all that should be focused on by critics and lay people alike, each of them trying to make discoveries about what truly matters in movie art and entertainment.

Much of the existing commentary and opinion about Cecil B. DeMille's Best Motion Picture award winner of 1952, The Greatest Show on Earth, is wholly devoted to the films it bested in its bid for Oscar immortality. Such bias has precedent in the dubious claim of How Green Was My Valley as picture of the year of 1941 as it beat Citizen Kane for the top award. Yet any address of DeMille's movie can't help complain about what it managed to overcome in being considered the best of its moment when history tells us it was anything but.

Nominated against High Noon, Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge and The Quiet Man, The Greatest Show on Earth is exactly that kind of motion picture the critical establishment tends to ignore. It's wholesome to the point of being bitterly saccharine. It's overlong to the point of being boring. It's simplistic to the point of being silly. Plus it's not much more than eye candy and fails to offer a single point of thematic resonance, a character worthy of long lasting consideration or even an approach its circus subject as anything more than the backdrop for B-level melodrama.

All these points are arguable but only between the most narrow-minded DeMille fan detrimentally in thrall with their idol's vapid work and the viewer who longs for provocative, smart and visually stunning movies. But it also bears reminding that The Greatest Show on Earth managed to receive a nomination for Best Motion Picture while Singin' in the Rain, The Bad and the Beautiful and Pat and Mike failed to. There is keen injustice in the world of limelight fantasy but never has this failure been more obviously misdirected than in the naming of DeMille's picture as movie of the year for 1952.

Of course there's a good reason for this state of affairs. Simply stated, it concerns DeMille himself who was the original epic movie producer from the high point of the silent cinema all the way through his final film, The Ten Commandments in 1956. When an untimely heart ailment finally killed him he was already a Hollywood myth and his legacy of Biblically inspired, big budget spectacles remain for us as films long on effects and moral messages but terrifyingly short on intelligent writing and lasting artistic value.

Still, many members of the Hollywood community up through the release of The Greatest Show on Earth cut their teeth on DeMille's films by either working on them or, more commonly, by watching them to learn about movie form and style. It's this place as one of the bedrock filmmakers of the first movie generation that cements the producer-director's place in cinema history. Unfortunately for the individuals titles themselves, if it weren't for certain of their outstanding aspects like special effects work or breathtaking design elements, they would be almost totally forgettable.

That many of his films typify the little understood term of "quality film" means they are examples of a now mostly ended aesthetic pursuit. Luckily many movie-going experiences have been improved by this turn away from DeMille's style and purpose although we still have contemporary throwbacks like Frank Darabont who mimic the old master's themes, if not his topics.

Set under the big top of Ringling Brothers Circus, The Greatest Show on Earth is about the process, artifice, politics and problems of putting on a show. Brad Braden (Charlton Heston) is the circus manager who single-handedly organizes his 1,400-person effort to sustain a traveling burden and his lifelong love. Understanding the need to earn money for his perpetually threatened operation, Braden options the biggest circus performer of them all, "The Great Sebastian" (Cornel Wilde), forcing him to sideline his would-be love Holly (Betty Hutton), a talented trapeze artist in her own right.

Sebastian is a womanizer and top draw among circus audiences who shell out big bucks buying admission tickets and snacks so long as he's in the show. Unfortunately he's immediately smitten with Holly who he goads into ever more complex and daring high wire stunts that worry Braden as he tries to control his circus, express his affection for Holly and bring pleasure to small and big town children all over the country.

Behind these show business machinations are a trio of secondary stories that help move the love triangle along. The first involves one of the clowns named Buttons (James Stewart) who's always in make-up and ever supportive with a mysterious past that won't leave him alone. There's also an unrequited love affair between the elephant handler Klaus (Lyle Bettger) and the light of his heart, Angel (Gloria Grahame), a longtime circus performer with an overdeveloped interest in Sebastian. Finally, there's a gangland leader working to frisk unwitting circus visitors and rig the circus games to his advantage.

A series of complications confront the troupe but finally it's the three secondary stories that bring the show to a close. When Angel believes Holly is going to leave the circus with Sebastian she moves in on Braden and makes Klaus insanely jealous. At the same time an FBI man looking for Buttons closes in on his quarry while the gangster capitalizes on Klaus's jealousy to try stealing the circus payroll. A spectacular train crash ensues where Braden is nearly killed and Holly realizes her unyielding love for him as the circus puts on a triumphant outdoor show despite the railroad tragedy.

Smaltzy throughout and sunny in its disposition, The Greatest Show on Earth is nothing more and nothing less than broad family fun. It's uncomplicated, disposable and pleasant enough to avoid any excitement save the most undeveloped happiness and it manages to include a number of cameos by the likes of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, among others.

DeMille may very well be one of Hollywood's great directors but this second to last film of his released in 1952 doesn't seem like a proper memorial for his filmography or for its contribution to Academy Awards history. He might well have been the prime mover most responsible for revolutionizing screen spectacle as a commercial prospect alongside publicity-friendly stars but this notion is far from a guarantee of the resulting work.