Word: cowards
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This Happy Breed (Rank-Universal) is Noel Coward's proud and loving tribute to the unbreakable British backbone. It tells the story of the lower-middle-class Gibbons family between Wars I & II. The film opens and ends with a fine Technicolor shot of the roofs of London. In the closing shot the roofs lie defenseless to the hell that is soon to crack them open. But by then, Coward has made clear how ready the people under the roofs are to endure the worst and to prevail against it. He shows this never through flat heroics, but through...
...about all there is to the story. Comic relief and pathos are added by an acidulous grandma, a neurasthenic maiden aunt and an old wartime friend of Frank's (Sterling Holloway). But the real meat of This Happy Breed is in the many plotless little human studies which Coward writes with such relish-Frank's advice to his bridegroom son, delivered in the privacy of the bathroom, just before the wedding; snappish, jagged family quarrels; a touching drunk scene between the two aging ex-soldiers; Ethel's silent, terrible way of absorbing bitter news. The real hero...
...film has any serious fault (occasional jerkiness and slowness of episodes are minor ones), it lies close to the heart of Noel Coward's particular kind of talent. His deep affection and respect for his subject cannot be questioned, nor can his deep knowledge of it (he came from just such a background). But he is an extremely clever man, with a great flair and fondness for theatrical trick and design, which, at their worst, can use emotions as if they were stage properties. When clever men try to write with complete sincerity and, at the same time...
Theatre Guild on the Air (Sun. 10 p.m., ABC). Noel Coward's Still Life with Ingrid Bergman, Sam Wanamaker...
...Harrison as the idealistic journalist can deliver a speech on human rights or a quick Noel Coward-ish line with equal skill. Vivien Leigh lends quiet beauty, while Creel Parker as her father is able to arouse the admiration as well as the ire of the audience. Well buttered with wit, "Storm in a Teacup" at the same time holds political significance for an America that still remembers Huey Long...