Word: celluloid
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ALTHOUGH the baffling, dedicated, often tormented painters of the late 19th century have inspired one Hollywood opus after another, the celluloid vision has proved no more revealing than the dated contemporary photographs. This month at Chicago's Art Institute, a traveling exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec will offer a fresh look at that tempestuous age, peopled by the foppish, witty, dwarf-legged chronicler of Montmartre and his painter friends Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. There, done with quick, sure strokes, is the record not only of what Toulouse-Lautrec saw as he grappled with the living instant...
This is the story the film tells competently. At times, however, the celluloid seems to have been coated with whitewash as well as WarnerColor-a treatment that damages Billy as well as the story. Billy's virtues (courage and sincerity) were set off, as well as offset, by his vices (fanaticism and tactlessness). In the part as it is written, Gary Cooper plays the flamboyant Billy for a sort of militant old maid, and his historic cry for justice for the air service sometimes seems about as exciting as an old maid's protest that the neighbor...
...while the triumphant networks lord it over admen and sponsors, a celluloid cloud looms threateningly in the West. If TV's entertainment remains mostly live, Manhattan will be its source and Broad way its inspiration. Should TV go to film, the bulk of the industry will shift to Hollywood-as radio did before it. Some pessimists see the day not far off when 70% of TV shows will be movies (currently, about 35% is filmed...
Blood Alley (Batjac Productions; Warner). Spare the celluloid, according to Director William A. ("Wild Bill") Wellman, and spoil the picture. His last three films (Island in the Sky, The High and the Mighty, Track of the Cat) have run to an average length of two hours. Encouraged by the business they brought in-The High and the Mighty has already grossed more than $7,000,000-Director Wellman has apparently decided that when people go to the movies they want to kill time, no less than to live dangerously. In Blood Alley, he gives them plenty of chance...
...work left the critics cold. For his recent Manhattan show Dali personally grabbed the limelight by mugging with his wax-bean mustache, but his work drew a bouquet of cabbages. His smooth-as-melted-ice-cream paint surfaces reminded one critic of "old miniatures painted on celluloid." Other critics deplored the "vacant trivialities" in the show...