Word: eisenstein
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Donald Dame, as the deceived profligate Eisenstein, sang and spoke his lines with all the exaggerated melodrama which his part requires. Eisenstein is in turn a libertine, cuckold, prisoner, and judge, and Dame's versatility made each characterization convincing...
...visually the best. Virginia MacWatters, singing the role made famous by Patrice Munsel, stopped the show with her provocative rendition of Adele's "Look Me Over Once" aria. The action in the second act picks up considerably as the comedy of cross-purposes begins to resolve itself. (Example: Eisenstein's attempt to seduce a masked lady at the ball, not knowing she is his wife." The dance sequence, although it added nothing to the story, was indeed spectacular, and the audience loved it --which is all that matters in a production of this kind...
Such moviemakers as Russia's Sergei Eisenstein-who got in trouble by making Czar Ivan the Terrible look too terrible-could have told Sun that the party line is not easily threaded through a movie projector. Just as Sun's acclaim was reaching its peak, Peking's People's Daily thundered that "his Life of Wu Hsun . . . showed that reactionary thoughts of the capitalistic class had seeped into the Communist Party." Far from being a hero of the people, Wu was a dangerous fool "who did not realize that his suffering was due to class oppression...
Bumps & Grinds. There were a few jarring notes. As the operetta's dupe, Eisenstein, Wagnerian Tenor Set Svanholm occasionally staggered like a fugitive from Götterdämmerung. Red-haired Soprano Ljuba (Salome) Welitch sometimes overacted her Rosalinda. Antony Tudor's ballroom ballet was a sour grape. But the singing and acting of the Met's 25-year-old Coloratura Patrice Munsel (as Adele) made up for all of that. Slim, pretty Patrice twice stopped the whole show cold. Her first show-stopping smash, delivered (with the help of new lyrics by Howard Dietz) with...
Since he has often been classed with such cinematic originators as Griffith, Eisenstein and Chaplin, Director De Sica is a moviemaker to be taken seriously. Actually, some of his scenes do suggest Chaplin's mixture of airy charm and down-to-earth bluntness. But thus far, he seems to be merely a clever craftsman with a great facility for squirting clear drops of sentiment into every shadow, gesture and cobblestone. The Bicycle Thief pictures the seamy side of life with no more reality than the average Hollywood movie shows the shiny side...