Word: backdrop
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Goldovsky's staging surpassed all his previous efforts. The sets, designed by Richard Rychtarik, ranged from a shipwreek on a rocky coast to the gloomy interior of a pagan cave-temple and included the effective device of magic lantern projection on a backdrop. Mr. Goldovsky made excellent use of the stage in his direction of the principals and chorus and in his use of a small but good-looking ballet, reaching the peak of his imagination in the storm scene and the finale, a would-be sacrifice of Idamantes in the temple. Leo Van Witsen's costumes were also outstanding...
...failed to counterbalance a cheap plot. In The Pearl, published in book form at year's end, Steinbeck reworked an old Mexican folk tale with over-deliberate folksiness. Lion Feuchtwanger's novel of 18th Century France had all the solidity and splendor of an old Orpheum Theater backdrop of Versailles. And Ben Ames Williams, old Satevepost standby, was delivered of a 1,514-page Civil War novel...
Playing a blackmailer south of the border, Montgomery clips his words and blanks his stares whenever possible. Funny business is the theme, and six grand is the pay-off. A carnival and merry-go-round provide a unique backdrop for the routine slug-fest that Hollywood associates with the underworld; and despite some stereotyped aspects, the story has few lapses. Montgomery dead-pans adequately and playing opposite is Wanda Hendrix who does her best to appear Mexican and inscrutable, providing good contrast for the know-it-all Montgomery...
...invisible (and nonexistent) wall in the center of the stage, waving long-stemmed glasses, nodding their heads furiously, and shouting in fearful chorus, "Yatata, yatata, boloney, mismosh, rubbish, yatata." The third impressionist scene is "Allegro" itself: the title song, a freudian ballet, and the gyrations of the projected backdrop displaying the tempo of modern life--allegro...
...plays beforehand, but in "The Homestretch," which happens to be about horse-racing, the average spectator will soon tire of matching wits with a plodding script-writer. Maureen O'Hara and Cornel Wilde join and separate as mechanically as two participants in a Virginia reel, with the much-abused backdrop of horse races and a stately Marlyland homestead. But there is nothing positively unpleasant about the picture: blushing technicolor is made the most of, especially in the newsreel shots of the English coronation, and the photography of the races is really very good...