Word: alec
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...With Alec Guinness in Paris, and during the spring at that, almost anything could happen. Unfortunately, the wrong thing does Guinness is tripped up by a script which keeps him in the background and gives him too little to do. Not that the English comedian's flight to France and sophisticated comedy is entirely dull. The mere presence of the old master on the screen would be enough to keep any film from sinking into the grey depths of tedium. The main trouble with this one is that the audience gets an uncomfortable feeling that just out of camera range...
...Crimson team by taking second with a 44.0 clocking, and freshman Karim Khan tied for third with the Big Green's Dick Perkins in 44.4. Further down the list were perennial entrants Al Sise '28 in 12th place, ski coach Graham Taylor '49 in 15th, and former Olympian Alec Bright '19 in 41st place...
...Paris With Love (Rank; Continental). It takes a certain nerve for a comedian to try a throwaway line. But it takes nothing less than the sublimest gall when he tries-as Alec Guinness does in this comedy-a complete, unmitigated, 78-minute throwaway picture. He tries, he succeeds. To Paris With Love is a suave and elegant little comedy of indirections. And yet, unfortunately, Guinness & Co. will probably discover that in throwing away their picture they have thrown away much of their audience...
Many moviegoers will not get the idea, and many who do will not think it a very good one; and for such the scenario provides a few fine bits of very smart Alec. "Remember,'' he remarks vaguely to his son as they inspect their room in a French hotel, "that's not a foot bath." Best of all is the moment when Alec, having rashly climbed a tree to retrieve a badminton bird, staggers at last out of a series of vegetable ignominies. And where is the bird? It is not hard to imagine, as dazedly...
British producers, it seems, know how to exploit a successful character type as well as any American who ever made three or four variations on the same basic idea. The title of Alec Guinness' latest picture is The Detective but it might just as accurately be called The Man in the White Suit Rides Again. Not that the plots are any more similar than one Abbott and Costello film is to another: it is the similarity of character type that constitutes a sequel. Father Brown is remarkably like that little fellow with the quizzical smile who engineered a mint robbery...