Word: roguish
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...peer over specks askew, sedentary hobble, sly little grin. But in the long run, it becomes painfully clear that while Comedian Guinness can do no wrong as a sanctimonious rogue (The Lavender Hill Mob, The Captain's Paradise), it is just about impossible to do right by a roguish saint...
...progress of the three gentle grafters from riches to rags is an amusing little elegy on the good old days before the big villains put all the nice little crooks out of business. Actor Squire, a master of the mumble-and-ndget school of British comedy, makes a roguish old rogue, and James Hayter, as the man who buys the hotel, does a preposterously funny caricature of a kind of rushing Beaverbrook...
Instead of shrinking from the play's preposterous involvements and broadly comic scenes. Director Guthrie and his cast seize them, hug them, and waltz them right into the present. The transformation is aided by brilliant modern costumes, both Voguish and roguish, designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch; Shakespeare in tails seems no more anachronistic than Shaw in a toga, and at times quite as cynical. The play's "Florentine Widow" becomes a wonderful old madam catering to the occupation forces; Helena's choosing a husband is turned into a charming kind of debutante cotillion; and the scene in which...
...Irish joke has been around for a long time, and The Quiet Man clings safely to its durable components: temper, thirst, and whimsey. But two hours and ten minutes of wry smiles and roguish glances, even from masters Ward Bond and Barry Fitzgerald, are pretty wearing...
Once you're in the pie-in-the-face mood, Si Bunce's hickory-smoked, sugar-cured characterization of the woodcutter forced to be a doctor is wonderful. The roguish woodcutter makes the most of his mistaken profession, giving Bunce the chance to leer lasciviously and pinch patients. (The actresses, incidentally, are Radcliffe, not padded males.) Some of the performances in the supporting cast are rather wooden when they are played straight, but luckily none of the performers is above stepping out of character at a propitious moment. James O'Neil's alert directing shows up well in groups scenes...