Word: cusack
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Carmen Capalbo's staging, like the acting, is wholly in the service of the play. Irish Actor Cyril Cusack is richly humorous and yet realistic as Josie's sly, disreputable father. At his best, Franchot Tone is a memorably quiet Jim. Wendy Hiller, not seen on Broadway since The Heiress, again gives a beautiful performance, again raises, through no fault of her own, a small demur. Glowingly vital and magnetic, Actress Hiller could never really quite seem a colorless, mousy heiress, nor seems now an oversized half-freak. Her acting brings some of its most resonant moments...
From this point on, it is fairly clear that Saadia is not about sex, but then, it is not about much of anything else, either. There is a witch (Wanda Rotha) who changes into an owl and a Holy Man (Cyril Cusack) who declares that Saadia "has a soul capable of the most extraordinary action." In fact, she turns out to be a sort of North African Calamity Jane, who rides off into the badlands, carves up a bandit chief, steals back some serum he has stolen, and so saves the country from a bubonic plague...
...Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes).* The picture has a warm, earthy flavor with handsomely photographed Technicolor scenes of the rolling Shropshire countryside. And a strong cast helps cover up some of the story weaknesses: David Farrar swaggers masterfully as the horsy squire, and Cyril Cusack is appropriately pale and wan as the deserted parson. But it is in Jennifer Jones's lush, wide-eyed performance as the passionate girl that The Wild Heart beats most strongly on the screen...
...novel, Gone to Earth, lets passion spin the plot in turn-of-the-century England. Jennifer Jones is a simple child of nature who likes to cuddle up with her pet fox. Just when she has settled down to a calm marriage with a parson (Cyril Cusack), along comes Squire David Farrar, a virile type, who whisks her off to his outsize estate. But Farrar has a crude habit of fox hunting, so Jennifer soon cools toward him. The ending is drenched in predictable melodramatics...
Along the way, while their heroine sacrifices herself for others, Wald & Krasna sacrifice such able players as Agnes Moorehead, Joan Blondell, Richard Carlson, Everett Sloane and Cyril Cusack to the tear-stained demands of the plot. By the time a disenchanted moviegoer may have concluded that the long-suffering governess is getting just what she deserves, the producers tune up the heartstrings for a happy ending that is guaranteed to melt mascara...