Word: paramount
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Dear Brat (Paramount). First came 1947's Dear Ruth, a comedy hit; then came the sequel, 1949's Dear Wife, a turkey. The third of the series can be described as a turkey croquette. Like its predecessor, Dear Brat celebrates the adolescent excesses of Mona Freeman, playing a feminine Henry Aldrich. This time she cues Edward Arnold's slow burns and Billy De Wolfe's prissy swivets by trying to rehabilitate a hardened criminal (Lyle Bettger), who bears a special grudge against Judge Arnold. The result is the kind of movie that helps sell television sets...
...zany comic team of Dean Martin, 34, and Jerry Lewis, 25, has worked hard to get ahead in its five-year career in nightclubs, radio & TV and movies (TIME, May 23, 1949). Last week, in a personal appearance at Manhattan's Paramount Theater, the boys worked harder than ever. They played to packed houses six times a day, seven times on Saturday, and followed almost every appearance with an extra three minutes of clowning at their dressing-room window overlooking 44th Street-a methodical bit of madness designed to lure overloyal fans out of the Paramount's seats...
After seven days, with another week still,to go, Martin & Lewis had outdrawn such favorites as Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra to break the Paramount's record for weekly receipts. The new mark: $150,000. Counting up their own take (50% of the gross, minus salaries for an orchestra and supporting players), the comics found that their hard work had paid them the highest one-week salary in the history of show business...
...Hole (Paramount), Producer-Director Billy Wilder's first movie since Sunset Boulevard, gleefully dissects human beings at their worst. The picture is clever, original, technically expert, and carries an occasional sharp sting of truth. But it runs a good idea into the ground and leaves a bad taste in the mouth...
...Paramount redeemed the heavy loss suffered by William Wyler's The Heiress, a big critical success, with the receipts from Cecil B. DeMille's spectacularly profitable Samson and Delilah. "It would appear as if what the industry needs is more Victor Matures (not to mention DeMilles) rather than more mature pictures...