Word: plotting
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...shown at the Beacon Hill, is not cut from the same hearty fabric as were its illustrious predecessors from the country. Though it contains in its cast two of Italy's biggest stars, Anna Magnani and Gino Cervi, their talents can do little to redeem a weak and confusing plot, poor photography, a strident musical score, and the general low quality of the film...
...faults, the film has novelty, emotional wallop and the excitement that comes from wrestling with a real problem, rather than fencing with a cooked-up plot. The acting, even against some unconvincing jungle sets, is persuasively lifelike; and even when it fumbles the statement of its message, the film retains a sort of rough-&-ready strength...
...plot is too complicated to worry much about, but there are several pleasant songs (by Harry Warren) sung with tireless bounce by Doris Day, and some mildly astringent lines about radio advertising, mostly delivered by Eve Arden...
...picture has a few minor virtues, most of them negative. It is less noisy and violent than most semi-documentaries of its kind and its heroics are less improbable. A cagey use of understatement throughout gives the film an air of reality that is not backed up by its plot...
This story should bother you. It worried other people enough so that they sent off to the New Yorker a record bundle of letters when the story first appeared last summer. The plot is an inordinately simple one, set in a narrow New England town; revealing it would tip one of the most persistently puzzling stories that has turned up in quite a while. Miss Jackson nimbly precipitates a commonplace situation into quiet mystery, then active horror. "The Lottery" is an allegory, and a fine one: it cuts too close to the heart of people and their customs...