Word: idols
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...poky: "I had privacy there. Nobody envied me, nobody wanted anything from me. Nobody wanted my bars or the bowl of pudding they shoved at me through the slot." But things would be different from now on for the actor who had been a $3,250-a-week idol of U.S. bobby-soxers: "I'm typed-a character. I guess I'll have to bear that all the rest of my life...
...Fallen Idol (Korda; S.R.O.), when Sir Alexander Korda released it last year in London, was a tremendous hit. Most of the enthusiastic raves were for a nine-year-old, towheaded actor named Bobby Henrey. The rest of the praise went to Author Graham Greene (The Heart of the Matter), who supplied a fascinating story, and to Director Carol Reed (Night Train), who for sheer virtuosity outdid himself. Most of the uproar, it turns out, was solidly justified...
...idol who takes a tumble in the story is Baines (Ralph Richardson), an embassy butler in London. Baines is detested by his tight-lipped wife, idolized by the ambassador's young son Felipe (Bobby Henrey), and loved by an embassy typist (Michele Morgan) whom he in turn loves. Out of this emotional tangle, Author Greene has built a clever, suspenseful tale. Borrowing Henry James's trick of using the eyes of children as peepholes into adult passions, Greene centered the story on little Felipe...
...Idol has many achievements to its credit: handsome, visually exciting sets, carefully pitched performances by Richardson and Michele Morgan, and assorted humorous bits of British character acting. But its outstanding achievement is Director Reed's handling of Bobby Henrey. To establish the child's-eye view of the story, he has turned his cameras loose in Felipe's own waist-high world, bounded by embassy balustrades and the butler's well-creased pants. To sharpen the effect, the sound track, like a child's half-focused attention, sometimes catches only half the adult talk...
...actor is made to act with all the awkward, sham-Dling, sleepwalking unawareness that normal children have when they are not caught in the glare of klieglights or an adult eye. The result is a subtle, absorbing drama of natural child behavior. A brilliant tour de force as entertainment, Idol could also be a useful object lesson on how to restore he Hollywood child to childhood...