Word: comically
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...what bad taste the movies can descend if given a chance. Anyone who has seen "Confirm or Deny" can testify to this. The latest example of Hollywood's attitude to the war is seen in "To Be Or Not To Be," Ernst Lubitsch's new farce, a very comic idea made acutely uncomfortable because the locale of the picture is Warsaw during the German occupation of Poland. In "Ninotchka" Lubitsch ribbed the foibles of the Russians and their Five Year Plan with great humor and relish. But the same formula is not successful in the present picture, for there...
...Animal (Warner) brings laconic Humorist James Thurber's famed War-Between-the-Sexes to the attention of its biggest audience yet. This semi-ludicrous, semipainful combat, which Thurber wrote all the way into a Broadway hit (with Co-Author Elliott Nugent) two years ago, is the most refreshing comic material Hollywood has encountered in a long time. The resulting cinema, though overlong and talky, is a delightful comedy charged with impish innuendo and raw laughter...
...Novel of the past century, not only for Mexico but for all Spanish-speaking countries." One press in Barcelona printed a million-odd copies annually. For millions of common people The Itching Parrot has been editorial page, moral preceptor, soapbox speech, liberalistic handbook, underground leaflet, scandal sheet, pulp-thriller, comic strip, and dirty-joke book. It has also been-and still is-an engaging story in which is made wonderfully vivid, as Mrs. Porter says, "the sprawling, teeming, swarming people of Mexico, ragged, eternally cheated . . . insatiably and hopelessly hungry, but indestructible." Relieved of its pamphleteering and moralizing (and probably...
Perhaps Jack Benny is no great shakes at Hamlet, but his Josef Tura is a beautiful piece of comic playing, especially when he impersonates the envoy and various Gestapo chiefs. Miss Lombard plays with consummate skill, warmth and humor. One forgets this is her last role, so compelling and captivating is her performance. The supporting cast is tops, particularly Felix Bressart, as a frustrated spear carrier, who dreams of playing Shylock; and Tom Dugan who turns in a wonderfully ludicrous impersonation of Hitler...
...definitely worth seeing, if only to determine just how far the comic muse can tickle you. You'll wince at one or two moments, but have a delightful time and then come out wondering just why you laughed so hard. And, oh, yes, a quick glance at any reputable time-table will help you skip the second feature, something incredible...