Word: films
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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There is really not a great deal that need be said about this film. From the introduction, delivered by the eversonorous Edward R. Murrow, until the end, which comes three hours later, the picture is a complete joy to watch. It is not great drama or high comedy, nor does it pretend to be. It just combines all the atractions of a spectacular travelogue with the entertainment of a fine variety show, and serves them up by means of a new motion picture process known as Todd-AO. And that, it should be understood, is no mean feat...
...interesting that the Church should let pass numerous cheap, fallacious films, and rise in arms against a film which has the immediate stigma of being "arty" and thus slightly distasteful to the mass of the moviegoing public. Whether one approves of the Kazan-Williams viewpoint or not, Baby Doll is as intensely serious and thoughtful a film as the American cinema has ever produced. A continuing condemnation of frank and disturbing films may be a further push along the road to a thoughtless mediocrity in the mass media...
There is a basic inconsistency in the stand of the American Catholics, because films from predominantly Roman Catholic Italy and France are considerably more frank about the darker side of life and less dogmatic about "sin" always leading to a bad end, the Legion of Decency's major objection to Baby Doll. In fact, Warner Brothers look to foreign showings of the film for a large part of its revenue...
...Chukoti. So it is with murderous hearts that the decimated Brigade finally overruns the cannon at the Valley's end, to drive lance after lance into the Khan's body. Nearly everybody is killed, as countless Britishers, horses, "Indjians," and Russians are speared, shot, and blown apart in the film's most satisfying scene...
...Honor the charge they made! Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!" Honor them if you wish, but for entertainment comparable to this "greatest historical romance ever filmed," stay home and watch a Bulldog Drummond film on the late, late show; but that could be the wrong thing to do, because they might broadcast The Charge of the Light Brigade...