Word: donators
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Robert Donat, in a dual role, plays both Murdoch Glourie, an eighteenth-century Scottish gigolo, and his twentieth-century descendant Donald, whose passions are somewhat more restrained. Although neither part demands exceptional acting, Donat manages to lighten his burr to achieve the transition from Murdoch to Donald. Jean Parker, However, looking like an English Claudette Colbert, is only a routine love-sick heroine. Although her attempted love affair with the ghost is a change from the ordinary, she has no opportunity to show any talent...
Starring Robert Donat, the J. Arthur Rank technicolor masterpiece features almost every well-known English star. Michael Redgrave briefly appears as an instrument maker, while Emlyn Williams only faces the audience once...
...flashbacks, Donat portrays the haphazard life of William Friese-Greene, inventor of the first motion picture camera (the magic box). Friese-Greene was infatuated with the idea of making slides move both black and white and color. This idea soon became an obsession which dominated his life. Giving a superb sympathetic performance, Donat seems to mellow with his character; white hair, wrinkles, and shuffling step untobtinsively blend into his part. Even Donat's voice slowly acquires an appropriately wistful tone...
...Magic Box (J. Arthur Rank; Mayer-Kingsley) is a lavish tribute to British cinema's pioneer William Friese-Greene (played by Robert Donat), who went without recognition during his lifetime, and died in poverty in 1921. The picture, a highly polished, occasionally over-reverent document that was made for last year's Festival of Britain, enlists many of the outstanding names in British films. It has some 70 stars, from Michael Redgrave to Emlyn Williams, in bit roles. It was produced by Ronald (Great Expectations') Neame, directed by John (Seven Days to Noon) Boulting, photographed in Technicolor...
...bumbling, Mr. Chips style, Donat plays the idealistic inventor with a good deal of warmth and wit. Best sequence: Friese-Greene excitedly demonstrating his newly perfected magic box by projecting flickering Hyde Park scenes in his laboratory in the dead of night to an audience of one: a stolid, bewildered London bobby, pungently played by Laurence Olivier...