Word: behrmans
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...most of the dialogue is more literate than the Hollywood average; some of it, evidently contributed by Co-Scripter S. N. Behrman, helps Actor Leo Genn to shine as Petronius, the Roman satirist, whose dry wit enables him to needle Nero even while flattering him. As Nero, Britain's Actor-Playwright-Director Peter Ustinov is allowed to hog too much screen time, but he does some expert hamming to create the deliciously malign figure of a spoiled, sensual madman. Finlay (Great Expectations) Currie plays St. Peter with eloquent dignity, though his long speeches are marred by the camera...
Prudential Playhouse (Tues. 8 p.m., CBS-TV). Gertrude Lawrence in S. N. Behrman's Biography...
...Know My Love (adapted from the French of Marcel Achard by S.N. Behrman; produced by the Theatre Guild & John C. Wilson) may run for years with the Lunts in it; without them, it would hardly last a week. Not since the perfection of the chocolate-covered peppermint has anything so thin also been so gooey. But with that delightful absorption in themselves that renders them oblivious to their surroundings, the Lunts are as arch, as expert and as enjoyable here as elsewhere...
Given half a chance, the pair of them, with their timing, their teamwork, their contrapuntal growls and purrs, can put any scene across. And now & then, amid large blobs of stage custard, Playwright Behrman obliges with a nice witticism about husbands or Boston. But unhappily there are long stretches in I Know, My Love when there is neither any play on the stage nor any Lunts...
There is even a sudden and tragic suicide during the course of the evening which provides a lively and well-acted interlude to the comedy. The victim is a widely romantic Goethe-reader whom, I fear, Mr. Behrman will never translate from the Gallic...