Word: plotting
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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About "Scandal Street," the co-feature, little that is complimentary can be said. It has no plot, no star, and no acting; it is dull, familiar, and insipid. Its one redeeming feature is the rather pretty face of one Louise Campbell, the poor innocent girl who is almost ruined by the villainous town gossips...
...seeking notoriety. A teller in a bank, about five feet two inches tall and an excessively mild and unemotional disposition, suddenly finds fame thrust upon him, for as the supposed killer in defense of a beautiful woman, he is the idol of the nation. The extravaganza with which this plot is unfolded, the surprise twists in the last act and some satirical comment on social climbers, women with pasts, publishers of "pornographic pulp," shysters, bankers, female adolescents who go in for studied moods and histrionics, and male adolescents who are tough, are the chief virtues of this lively, highly amusing...
There are some obscure points in the plot that would cry out for clearing up if the play were to assume the standing of a murder mystery. Inasmuch as it bases all its claims on its excellent comedy of character and circumstance, however, the discrepancies in the story may be ignored. But one confusing element would seem regrettable: first the little teller promises his wife that someday he will be rich and famous; then his sensational adventure comes about apparently as an accident. The result is that the slightly bewildered spectator doesn't know whether to regard...
International Settlement (Twentieth Century-Fox) makes a bee line to the Far East to cash in on the publicity value of the daily Sino-Japanese headlines. More worthy of note than its short-order plot are: 1) its resourceful utilization of the newsreel shots of the Shanghai bombing (TIME, Sept. 13); 2) its hopeful experiment with doll-like, undistinguished June Lang (real name: Jane Vlasek) as a beautiful-but-dumb comedian; 3) its commanding hero, 6 ft.-3 in. George Sanders. Russian-born of British parents, Sanders made a great stir in his first Hollywood role, as the foppish Lord...
...plot of Our Town centres in a bashful boy-and-girl romance, but the general theme is more properly the chores and pleasures of Grover Corners as a whole. Without solemnity. Wilder seeks to transform the commonplaces of village life into the verities of human existence. Using fibred dialogue and lucid pantomime, for two acts he catches the fumbling wonderment of ordinary people, cakes their life with humor, charges it with feeling. The emotional climate is exactly right: warm...