Word: scripted
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...nothing wrong in that. If a playwright can arrange to have unknown hands reach out from doors, a Big Ben-like clock strike off-stage at tense moments, and blood trickle over door sills,--if he can work all of these (and more, as in this case) into his script without causing his audience to titter at the overlarding, then hooray...
...Everybody Does It" (perish the name) is supposed to be an hilariously funny movie. Nunnally Johnson, who wrote the script, carefully avoided all opportunities for other than comic effects. This singleness of purpose makes it easy for the reviewer to pass judgment--the movie is not funny, hence it is worthless...
...incidentals are the best of all. Faced with scores of temptations to slip into patches or melodrama, the script escapes nimbly every time. Bits like the execution of a priest and the shooting game of the drunken German commandant acquire a power above their importance to the story...
...Groucho likes it fine. "In the old days they almost threw me off the air if I deviated from the script," he says. "I had to sign a written pledge that I would read only what was before me. But now I'm doing what comes naturally. It's like stealing money [$3,000 a week] to get paid for this...
Director John Farrow not only helped to write a pretty lively script, but managed to keep his highly volatile star and story under control. Also doing double duty is Songwriter Frank Loesser who, besides contributing a nice burlesque of a marcelled thug named Hair-Do Lempke, composed the songs which Betty sandwiches in between her Keystone clowning...