Word: crescendo
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...noteworthy for its silences as for its sounds. And Fred (The Men) Zinnemann's direction wrings the last ounce of suspense from the scenario with a sure sense of timing and sharp, clean cutting. The picture builds from 10:40 a.m. to its high noon climax in a crescendo of ticking clocks, shots of the railroad tracks stretching long and level into the distant hills and of the hushed, deserted streets of Hadleyville. Throughout the action, Dimitri Tiomkin's plaintive High Noon Ballad sounds a recurring note of impending doom...
Citation: "From the bassinet in her mother's dressing room in the theater, to the throne of long-reigning queen of the Drew-Barrymore dynasty, her tour of the hearts of the theater-loving public has been an uninterrupted processional of glory in crescendo...
Yellin's music is supposed to approximate normal speech inflections, but it does not even come close. There can be no excuse for accenting the second syllable of "Larry" (this happens at least twice) or for writing crescendo that reach their peak at the most unimportant word of a sentence. Nor does the music ever serve to heighten the dramatic situation. Instead, it is mildly pleasant background music that certainly does not represent Yellin at his best...
Rancho ends in a predictable crescendo of six-shooters. Marlene brings the competence of long experience to her role of an aging seductress, Mel Ferrer is suitably dashing as "the fastest draw in the West," and Arthur Kennedy is all right as the vengeful lover, but he should not have been required to outrage Dietrich fans by delivering moral preachments...
After intermission, the chorus was joined by the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. The "Serenade to Music," with the text from Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," demonstrated Vaughan Williams' great ability in fitting music to words. The gradual crescendo and accelerando that begins at the words "Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn," were vivid without being garish, effective without artificiality. And there were many other moments of similar dramatic unity...