Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Amidst the ceaseless stream of Western melodramas flowing annually from the pens of Hollywood script writers, there are a few really first-rate productions. Such a picture is the "Oklahoma Kid." Somehow the hackneyed plot about the outlaw who "goes straight" has been given a unique twist, resulting in eighty minutes of fast moving, swashbuckling action. James Cagney comes through with a thoroughly convincing performance in the title role. Besides looking like a true cowboy, Mr. Cagney shows a depth of character portrayal unusual for pictures of this type. Humphrey Bogart does a fine job as a leering and scheming...
Wife, Husband and Friend (Twentieth Century-Fox). Loretta Young, Warner Baxter and Cesar Romero in a domestic comedy rescued from complete mediocrity by a few neat twists in Nunnally Johnson's script...
Back to the circus, where he belongs, is W. C. Fields in his latest movie, "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man," now showing at Keith Memorial Theatre. Fields puffs and wheezes his way through a second-rate script that almost submerges the beauties of his alcoholic capers. Luckily Charlie McCarthy, with stooges Mortimer and Bergen in tow, gives the picture a hypodermic of crackling dialogue that saves it from going to sleep on its feet...
Huston was vociforous in his praise of Maxwell Anderson, claiming, "With the possible exception of Eugene O'Neill, Anderson shows more genius in handling his script than any other play-wright. An actor can't rush through his lines the way he can with other play-wrights. Each speech must be digested and presented so that the audience can grasp every word...
...angle is added, the spark is gone. In fact, the replacement of Cary Grant by a fox terrier named Atlas is even a slight detriment. Billie Burke, as Mrs. Topper, runs away with all the good lines and leaves the rest to the cast to struggle with a script which is nowhere near as good as that of the first Topper picture. The superb comedy of Roland Young and Franklin Pangborn, however, overcomes the discrepancies of the picture...