Word: curtizisms
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...real aim, which is to be exciting. Its producers say what there is to be said on both sides, particularly the miners' side, with clarity, completeness and adult human understanding. Its subject may make Black Fury one of the most talked of pictures of the year. Michael Curtiz' direction and Paul Muni's superb performance make it one of the most worth-while dramatically. Good shot: Joe Radek getting gaily...
...fashion for gumshoes who, when they encounter corpses, malefactors and degenerates, enjoy a manic period of which wisecracks are the symptoms, started with The Thin Man. The Case of the Curious Bride is a less adroit, less original picture but the speed of Michael Curtiz' direction manages to create somewhat the same mixture of tension and amusement. Warren William, fast becoming Hollywood's No.1 exponent of deductive reasoning, is aided enormously by Claire Dodd in her first cinema performance as a nice girl...
...obvious fault in The Key as occasional drama is that the incidents which it relates could have occurred just as well in Nicaragua or Cincinnati. Nonetheless, Dublin decorations do not damage a good melodrama. The Key is well constructed and acted with proper enthusiasm. Under Director Michael Curtiz, who took pains to get all the possible wear out of his sets, Edna Best does a commendable job in her first important cinema role. Good shot: a genial Irish bartender advising Captain Kerr to leave by the back door where he knows an ambush is in wait...
Even with Paul Green's sincere writing, Barthelmess' well-intentioned acting, Director Michael Curtiz' occasionally striking photography, Cabin in the Cotton fails to excite with its cinematically new problem, treatment and landscape. The sweet, empty face of honey-haired Bette Davis is notably effective in a villainess part. Excellent shot: the lynching party following bloodhounds along the top of a ridge screened by bare trees...
...Director Curtiz had opened this picture with such simple symbolism as a skinny cat sniffing garbage pails, following with a tale whose luridity dated back to the Black Crook, famed thriller. This one paraded the emotions of Rose Shannon, night club dancer who loved a handsome bank robber (Conrad Nagel). Eventually, wildly, wrongly, she is suspected of stealing, is arrested, scared under the third degree, where the spoken dialogue is first heard. To end this whole experimental footage, the actors use the academic, classic embrace...