Word: achard
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Patate (adapted by Irwin Shaw from the French of Marcel Achard) was a big Paris hit, though nothing in the quickly folding Broadway version seemed to link it with Paris at all. It is a tale of two men, a heel who has grown rich and his down-at-heel patate or fall guy. When Patate learns that the heel has become his adopted daughter's lover, he at last has a chance to even up the score; but as top dog, he proves the worst flop...
Irwin Shaw has taken Patate from the French of Marcel Achard, and he would be well advised to put it back. As a laugh show, this "New Comedy" suffers from a paucity of laughs. And since the script is not a gimmick adorned by gags, in the fashion of most American comedies, but a closely plotted dramatic whole, there seems very little possibility of its being rewritten and rescued by skillful gagsmithing...