Word: 34th
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...Heaven's Sake (20th Century-Fox] is a tasteless whimsy unworthy of Scripter-Director George (Miracle on 34th Street) Seaton, who bolted it together out of a deservedly unproduced play by Harry (Here Comes Mr. Jordan) Segall. It concerns two angels (Clifton Webb and Edmund Gwenn) who are sent on an earthly mission to inspire procreation by a selfishly childless theatrical couple (Joan Bennett and Robert Cummings...
...Cooper, and by Jack La Rue's bit as a movie star who fancies himself the living model of the tough, coin-flipping gangster he plays on the screen. They do nothing to repair the picture's ingrained faults. As Director Seaton himself demonstrated in Miracle on 34th Street, the supernatural elements of a fantasy are best played off against the familiar realities of an everyday world. Instead, the coy hocus-pocus of For Heaven's Sake takes place in the never-never land of Hollywood farce...
...script's neatest trick, unfalteringly pulled off by Edmund Goulding's direction and Edmund Gwenn's superb acting, is to give the picture's closing episodes the winning quality of Miracle on 34th Street. Like Miracle, in which Actor Gwenn played a put-upon Santa Claus, Mister 880 works up the surefire comic-sentimental appeal of pompous authority melting in the warmth of an ingenuous little man of good will...
...34th Regiment scraped together a convoy of 113 vehicles and barreled through the outskirts of the city, but was halted when enemy shells set fire to an ammunition truck at the head of the column. The driver of the next truck drove through a hail of enemy fire, rammed the exploding ammunition truck off the road, and led the rest safely through the lines...
...lead and some bright scripters on the job, the picture might have turned into a devastating satire of radio's foolish age. Veteran Colman does well enough in his orotund English style, but the writers fail him almost completely. Basically, they miss the vital point-which Miracle on 34th Street caught so well-that the story's fantastic premise should be played out as if the impossible were really happening. Instead, the film has been pitched on a wobbly note of broad burlesque with overtones of self-conscious whimsy, e.g., the soap company's headquarters all decked...