Word: hammiest
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...that session his seldom consulted followers were reluctant to go along, although they were as unprepared for civil war as they were for peace. Next day the hammiest actor in world politics (now that Il Duce has made his exit) had to put on another show to make the League see reason...
This phenomenal success is not exactly due to a phenomenal show. Blackouts shamelessly parades some of the hoariest and hammiest tricks known to vaudeville, plus a few from burlesque. It reels off regulation acrobats, trained dogs, whistlers, warblers, hoofers, drummers, fiddlers, pianists, contortionists, mimics, a chorus line of old women, and a chesty, baby-voiced leading lady, Marie Wilson...
Some of the villagers (including Frank Lawton) escape, hold off the Nazis until the timely arrival of British troops. High spot: Fifth Columnist Banks dying like a dog, in the hammiest death throes since Laocoon...
...hammiest scenes and lines have been left intact, and are played straight. The barkeeper and the gambler leer, sneer, entrap their victims. Joe the drunkard wrestles in agony with the demon rum; his little daughter quavers Father, Dear Father, Come Home With Me Now, and later dies; Joe remorsefully swears off liquor with the old gag, "I'll never drop another drink-I mean drink another drop." The gambler stabs the squire's son, and the barkeeper's son slugs his old man to death with a gin bottle...
Joan Blondell was recently voted the ideal American mother. In several buxom lingeric scenes from "Model Wife," the second feature, the reasons for this become obvious. Otherwise, the movie is potential material for Lampy's "worst of the year" file. It is hard to decide who is hammiest, Miss Blondell, hubby Dick Powell or other-man Lee Bowman in the transparent love-plot involving secret marriage and desire-for-baby. "Model Wife" has two redeeming features, the expert comedy acting of Charles Ruggles, and the fact that the clam-faced Powell is not called upon to sing...