Word: comical
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...cast is deservedly well known, mostly playing roles that have since become types for them. Barry Fitzgerald signed on board as a comic Irish cook, and Thomas Mitchell as a gruff Irish bully-with-golden-heart. In the company of such genuine specimens Ward Bond changes nationality, if not character, and is a tough, simple-hearted swabbie named yank. The only real surprise is John Wayne who plays Ole. Replete with standard grin and a Swedish accent, Wayne is amazingly good, doing his part with a skill and delicacy that somehow rubbed off by the time he got around...
Capp, a frequent performer at the University, is the originator of L'll Abner, the nationally syndicated comic feature...
While its charm is impaired by a bitter denunciation of the sort of social "game" that must be played by rules, The Rules of the Game is still a comedy. Chase scenes and insinuating servants join other well-aged comic props, twisted by the Renoir touch into a clever and enjoyable satire...
...quite a mess: in this, his 28th play, Rice is like a horse that knows the road so well he can stay on it even when the driver falls asleep. But he weaves and ambles, with no real sense of where he is going, and he offers such comic dialogue as "Would you hazard a guess as to the duration of the cogitational period?" As the heroine, Joan Tetzel can only be violent and affected as a way of seeming upset. As the successful suitor, Tom Helmore has far better methods of seeming nonchalant...
...annual auction of stolen articles, his drunken acceptance of the prize for the season's largest striped bass (illegitimately come by), his bogus historical lecture inspired by the finding of a complete skeleton. But Author Taylor's affection for Cape Cod and its people sometimes transcends comic writing, and his description of an offshore rescue by the local Coast Guard men during a hurricane is a model of exact reporting. The Bright Sands takes few fictional liberties with its natural setting. Those it takes with its characters keep Taylor well this side of libel...