Word: saroyans
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...this time there are few literate people in the United States who don't know William Saroyan's philosophy of life. "I love to see people happy; things should be this way all the time," declares the hero of "The Human Comedy," first Saroyanesque venture into the realm of the motion picture. And the author drums away at his simple theme reel after reel, in a film which occasionally reaches heights of emotion and feeling rarely equalled on celluloid, but which descends to the maudlin almost as often...
...requires a delicate hand, because the idea is very apt to be overdone. Clarence Brown, producer director, and Howard Estabrook, who wrote the screen play, try very hard but they sometimes outdo the shaggy-haired eccentric in being sloppily sentimental. "The Human Comedy" is the story of a typically Saroyan family in the typically Saroyan town of Ithaca, California. There is Homer MacCauley, who pedals a bicycle for Postal Telegraph and learns about life (Saroyan life, that is) from veteran telegrapher Frank Morgan and manager James Craig. His little brother Ulysses (Ulysses and Homer live in Ithaca, Saroyan reminds...
...name. When a San Francisco guidebook spoke of him in 1939 as Hilaire Hitler, he got so mad he sued the publisher and writers for $100,000. Today he seems in fine inner and outer repair. So does Papa, of whom says Hilaire: "He is to painting what Saroyan is to writing: neither knows a thing about his craft; each does a damn good...
...Saroyan touch leaves nothing ordinary; the film is electric with the joy of life. It gets this quality partly from the acting of Mickey Rooney, who, despite some persistent Andy Hardy mannerisms, is for once something besides a showoff. But the real star of The Human Comedy is five-year-old Jack Jenkins. When he startles a bearded scholar in the town library by suddenly poking his freckled, wistful face before the man's eyes, the film sings. Best scene is the one in which he learns the meaning of "I'm afraid." A human advertising robot...
...Saroyan wrote The Human Comedy as a scenario (the novel was an afterthought), sold it to M.G.M. for $60,000 on the understanding that he would direct the picture. Assigned to practice on a short, the temperamental Mr. Saroyan soon got so fed up with the studio's "continuous and disgraceful crying, trembling and shaking" that he walked...