Word: humorousness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...meditate in India last month, and released on both sides of the Atlantic last week. It bears the hallmarks of all their most recent work: a deft arrangement, superb engineering, and a lyric (sung by Paul McCartney in what is known as his "Elvis voice") that combines blithe humor with sharp social portraiture of a hard-pressed mother...
...Unlike nature, the American public adores a vacuum," says a character in Weekend. The thesis will certainly be tested by the fate of Gore Vidal's new Broadway comedy about a presidential hopeful. Vidal is capable of springy, sophisticated political humor, as he demonstrated in The Best Man (1960); but this time the jokes are either juvenile or senile. Most of the characters are as appealing as wads of wet Kleenex, and the story line is about as amusing as the Congressional Record...
...only bring us to Coriolanus. Babe opts-out of the traditional director's game of characterizing Coriolanus by motivating his inability to humble himself before the plebeians. Corresponding to his entire approach, Babe emphasizes diverse characteristics of the man as situations arise. Strongest seems a perverse sense of humor: Coriolanus smiles and waves goodbye when he leaves Rome, as if he were leaving for summer camp. Tom Jones is neither larger-than-life, like Olivier (Stratford, 1960), or rich and petulant, like Ian Richardson (Stratford, 1967), and relies heavily on physical presence and quiet emphatic reading of dialogue...
...kind of Laurence Harvey accent that disappeared only when his acting instincts carried him away. And Lloyd Schwartz's charming enthusiast Trofimov, who ended the first act in an exquisitely naive love scene with Miss Firth, seemed afterwards unsure how to time and blend his seriousness and humor...
Huston's problem as a director has always been indecision. His laconic humor and bent for undisciplined improvisation invariably takes precedence over careful development of theme through characterization and narrative. In The African Queen, the pretentions of melodrama cancel-out the element of romance, providing only an irritating absence of clarity of purpose. Considering its creators, The African Queen represents a sad, if entertaining, meeting of people whose careers were moving downhill. Bogart and Hepburn had made by far their best films, she for Cukor and Bogart for Hawks; Huston's reputation as a director grew deservedly tarnished...