Word: actor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...answer is yes. The screen is indeed adequate to Shakespeare at his greatest-and Director-Actor Olivier's Hamlet is the proof. With this admirable filming of one of the most difficult of plays, the whole of Shakespeare's dramatic poetry is thrown wide open to good moviemakers...
Tradition & Invention. Any production of Hamlet stands or falls, in the long run, by the quality of its leading actor. Most productions have little to recommend them except a good Hamlet; few have that. This one, in every piece of casting, in every performance, is about as nearly solid as gold can be. It is hard to imagine better work, along traditional lines, than that of Felix Aylmer, snuffling and badgering about as Polonius; or of Basil Sydney (who once played a memorable Hamlet, in modern dress) as the corrupt, tormented usurper; or of Norman Wooland as a gentle, modest...
Rational Sharpness. Short of such majestic challenges, Olivier is as sure in his work, and as sure a delight to watch, as any living artist. No other actor except Chaplin is as deft a master of everything which the entire body can contribute to a role; few actors can equal him, in the whole middle register of acting. He takes such little words as My father's spirit in arms! and communicates and is worthy of their towering poetry. He can toss off lines like For every man hath business and desire in a way to make Shakespeare congratulate...
Married. José Ferrer, 36, actor-producer (Othello, Cyrano de Bergerac); and Phyllis Hill, 27, blonde Broadway actress (Angel Street, Cyrano de Bergerac); four days after his Mexican divorce from blonde Broadway Actress Uta Hagen (Angel Street, Othello) ; she for the first time, he for the second; in Greenwich, Conn...
...fine dancer, a good actor, personally very likable, of considerable vigor and sense as a creative artist, but on the whole he has gone very wrong in this picture. His performance is so sharply mannered that it is a continuous muted dance. But too little of the remarkable vitality and grace are really his own. He has drawn heavily on John Barrymore and still more heavily on Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and his imitations, almost the more because they are so apt and eager, are as unhappy to watch as any other forged masterpiece. Besides, he has to deliver a good...