Word: comical
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...accurate and factual as possible." But the participants and their conduct at ease and in combat are fictional. The people who are supposed to give flesh & blood to Wake Island-a tough major (Brian Donlevy), a tough lieutenant (Macdonald Carey), a tough contractor (Albert Dekker), a tough team of comic privates (Robert Preston & William Bendix)-are sincerely invented and acted, but hopelessly unreal in so stern a context. Not even Brian Donlevy, who does his job as soberly as if it were a military assignment, can quite convince anyone that he is anything but the too-familiar, patriotic young actor...
Some youngsters, not yet in high school, got the jump on the older boys by forming their own Junior Commandos, influenced by the comic strips' "Colonel Orphan Annie," currently leading her commandos against enemy agents. At Detroit's Boys Club playground more than 100 youngsters, dressed in shorts, sneakers and tin helmets, and carrying wooden guns, went through commando drill...
This is the case with the Brattle Hall presentation with three notable exceptions. The lovable Grandpa Vanderhof is played by one of stage and screen's great character actors, Fred Stone, whose acting is a fine example of comic technique. He has all the timing, presence, and quaint mannerisms that are required to bring such a role to life, and his performance is one that should not be missed. He is best supported by his daughter, Paula, and by Nancy Duncan, who play his grand-daughter and daughter respectively. Nancy Duncan again shows her versatility as an actress...
...play, however, has lost little of its humor and almost none of its meaning. Some gags no longer seem funny due to the events of the several years since the play's creation, but the situation is essentially comic and the philosophy of escape it offers a pleasant one. In addition, the opportunity to see Fred Stone in the intimacy of Brattle Hall is a valuable experience. Perhaps the best part of the evening is his little curtain speech, which sheds a very favorable light upon the by-gone art of vaudeville. On the whole, this performance is good entertainment...
...William Faulkner's younger brother" is not likely to be called that much longer. Forty-year-old John Faulkner has quite a South of his own, and his own way of telling about it. He knows how to give social history the easy clarity of a good comic strip, the human resonance of a good novel. His first book, Men Working (TIME, Aug. 11, 1941), was a tragicomedy about poor white farmers, brought to town and stranded there by WPA. Dollar Cotton is the life story of a Cotton King, Otis Town...