Word: harwoods
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...DRESSER Directed by Peter Yates, Screenplay by Ronald Harwood...
Indeed, Sir has become the thing he plays, a Lear-like creature wandering the blasted heath that is wartime Britain. The women of his company are very rough analogues to Lear's daughters, while Norman is certainly meant to be understood as the Fool. But Ronald Harwood's adaptation of his own play does not force these comparisons too hard. It is perfectly possible to enjoy The Dresser simply as a backstage fable, rich in the full-tilt emotional exaggeration of plays and pictures that try to catch showfolk off guard, offstage. Or as a fairly acute study...
Finney is a revelation. His was almost a secondary role in the theater, largely because Sir's performances were observed and discussed by the other characters but never seen by the audience. In adapting play to film, Harwood and the always sensible Peter Yates have chosen to show Sir at work. And Finney has chosen to be as good as he can be as Lear. This redeems Sir from the bombastic egocentricity of his dressing-room self, placing a humanizing glaze on his hamminess. It also makes the ironic point that for many actors a role is the only...
...Dresser cannot fill its noble Shakespearean outline. Harwood would have been well advised to stop short of his last-act fling at tragedy and rest on his strength, which is for comically melodramatic commentary on the vagaries and excesses of the theatrical life. Still, he has wisely turned his original vehicle from a unicycle into a bicycle built for two, and Courtenay and Finney give it a thrilling ride. -By Richard Schickel
...narrow focus (Variety covered the war in Lebanon by noting how it had affected the box office at Beirut movie theaters). Moreover, both publications can be fooled into announcing projects that have neither financing, script nor star, nor reasonable likelihood of ever getting them. Admits respected Variety Reporter James Harwood: "We have printed hundreds of titles that were never made." No one seems to mind. Explains Producer Albert Ruddy (The Godfather, The Cannonball Run): "Everybody will use the trades. You know it's hype when you do it. But the next day I'll pick up the trades...