Word: kazan
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...Face in the Crowd (Newtown; Warner) is the sort of cure that almost makes the disease desirable, even when the disease is as painful as the commercial phoniness that currently afflicts some parts of U.S. culture. The doctor in this case is Elia Kazan, a well-known specialist in social disorders who made On the Waterfront and Baby Doll and has directed three of Tennessee Williams' plays. Unhappily Kazan does not seem to know the first thing about a satiric operation. As Lady Mary Wortley Montagu explained the technique: "Satire should, like a polished razor keen/ Wound with...
...Rage is Kazan's undoing. He hacks and hews with such ill-considered fury that the patient soon becomes a mere victim and the satire falls to pieces. The victim (Andy Griffith) is a big-time TV entertainer, a professional yokel. Behind his hawg-trough grin stands a greedy and brutal hog, but the public cannot see the phony character for the microphone manner. "Shucks,'' stutters Lonesome Rhodes, as he strim-strams on his li'l ole git-tar, "Ah'm jes' a country boy." And soon his public stretches...
...interesting that the Church should let pass numerous cheap, fallacious films, and rise in arms against a film which has the immediate stigma of being "arty" and thus slightly distasteful to the mass of the moviegoing public. Whether one approves of the Kazan-Williams viewpoint or not, Baby Doll is as intensely serious and thoughtful a film as the American cinema has ever produced. A continuing condemnation of frank and disturbing films may be a further push along the road to a thoughtless mediocrity in the mass media...
...school play) moved to Florida, where she tried night club dancing. Then she went alone to New York, where she was a flop on TV and tried out for a little group called Actor's Studio. She got parts in two Broadway plays as a result, and Elia Kazan happened by one day and screen-tested...
...Keith. The Great Man is dead. Long live his greatness? Jose Ferrer snoops around tensely, and says no. A tidy film. At the Beacon Hill. Baby Doll doesn't deserve all the publicity but contains three brilliant performances--by Eli Wallach, Karl Malden, and baby-blond newcomer Carrol Baker. Kazan's direction is outstanding, but Tennessee Williams' contributions to the film are weak. In the suburbs. The Rainmaker involves Lancaster, Hepburn (the elder), and drought in a mildly engaging evening. It rains, after a while. At The Saxon...