Word: hollywoodized
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first day of his duel with Hollywood's suspected Communists, Representative J. Parnell Thomas, a choleric man, smashed one gavel to a smither. Next day he turned up with two new ones, prepared, if necessary, to smash both to smithereens. The spot he had put himself in was enough to try the patience of a saint, and J. Parnell ("Undoubting Thomas," as the Nation called him) was no saint. But he hated Beelzebub, and he was trying to solve the fly problem with a horse whip...
...critics had their critics. Times Columnist Arthur Krock pointed out that many now loudest in their protests had kept mighty quiet when earlier committees were giving the third degree to the Morgans, Wall Street and the utilities lobby. Daily News Columnist John O'Donnell, sneering at Hollywood's yells of injured innocence, recalled that the brokers and bankers had taken their mauling in stoic silence. Both pundits needed their memories overhauled. They also seemed to be saying that what was bad enough for J. P. Morgan was bad enough for movie characters...
...real trouble with the Thomas committee seemed to be the committee itself. Instead of buckling down to the problem of Communism where it hurt, as in the labor unions, it had gleefully pounced on Hollywood, where the publicity was brighter. It had failed to establish that any crime had been committed-i.e., that any subversive propaganda had ever reached the screen...
...surroundings they have been occasionally successful as in 'Great Expectations," but more often they have not as witness "Cacsar and Cleopatra" "Men of Two Worlds," or the current "Beware of Pity." The same indictment cannot be applied to the fine picture that now and then rears up out of Hollywood's commercial quicksand. "The Informer," "Emile Zola," "Ninotchke," or "The Good Earth," support this view. American film makers have many times examined foreign cultures on an intelligent level, or have sounded American short-comings as in "The Grapes of Worth," with more than commercial success...
Playing a blackmailer south of the border, Montgomery clips his words and blanks his stares whenever possible. Funny business is the theme, and six grand is the pay-off. A carnival and merry-go-round provide a unique backdrop for the routine slug-fest that Hollywood associates with the underworld; and despite some stereotyped aspects, the story has few lapses. Montgomery dead-pans adequately and playing opposite is Wanda Hendrix who does her best to appear Mexican and inscrutable, providing good contrast for the know-it-all Montgomery...