Word: fictional
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Under Capricorn (Transatlantic Pictures; Warner) puts Ingrid Bergman to work under one of the heaviest handicaps of her career. At best, the story is a florid historical romance; at its worst it is little better than hysterical drugstore fiction. Even tricked out with Technicolor and the skillfully elegant direction of Alfred Hitchcock, if remains a tedious and dispiriting yarn...
...pulled off his neatest trick-the synchronizing of Jolson's singing voice with Actor Larry Parks's gestures and lips. He has also decked out the whole exhibition with a brilliant display of soundstage techniques and gadgets. The result is a dizzy scramble of fact and fiction. In the sequences showing the filming of The Jolson Story, Larry Parks plays both himself and the "real life" Al Jolson (who remains off screen as coach and consultant...
Though far too romantic to be the real McCoy, Roseanna is a moderately entertaining movie. It successfully avoids the bearded cliches of most hillbilly fiction and sticks to a safe middle road between authenticated history and conservative Hollywood tradition. Highlight of the picture is Miss Evans, Sam Goldwyn's latest personal find, whose natural, unadorned charm gives an appealing homespun finish to the slick production. To back her up, Goldwyn also contributed the talents of some distinguished veterans, notably Raymond Massey and Aline MacMahon as the elder McCoys, and Charles Bickford and Hope Emerson as Anse and Levisa Hatfield...
...pulp magazines, the moral was even plainer: no matter how low their standards for fiction, the comics could find lower ones...
...victims against a backdrop composed of the simple facts of life. Nonetheless, most of The Oasis has just the same fatal flaw as the Utopia it describes-it is built entirely of disembodied ideas and peopled with puppets. As an intellectual essay it tinkles some pretty bells, but as fiction it is about as robust and complete as a lopped-off head...