Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Robert Hamer's restrained direction and Paul Beeson's camera work are fine. The film's only major fault is the screenplay, written by Hamer from an adaptation by Gore Vidal. It's a pity Vidal wasn't allowed to do the whole job. Hamer's script leaves a number of loose ends and unclear motivations; and the denouement is both trite and inexcusably abrupt. But the picture is worth seeing for its performances...
...only formally declared candidate for the presidency,* has a problem. His campaign managers have carefully written a moderate's role for him. on the reasonable theory that it will be popular with the voters. But whenever Humphrey takes the speaker's stand, he invariably throws the script away and becomes a wildcat liberal, promising the world to his listeners. "And the people in front of him just don't want the world right now," explains a worried Humphrey advocate. In his offstage moments, Humphrey himself senses the public's present wariness...
...other show, the script might have spelled disaster. There was the ambitious momma, dead set on getting daughter into show business-but with enough maternal instinct left over to mother a stray coyote, a spinster tourist and a Mexican wetback with a guitar. There was also the expected, easygoing dad, a navy officer son-in-law sore at momma's machinations, and a happy ending. But somehow, on the U.S. Steel Hour (CBS) last week, the thin substance of The Pink Burro stiffened into a commendable show...
Since the script calls for only four actors (and uses only three of them most of the time), it is essential that each player be an accomplished "light comedian" if the frailty of the play's skeleton is not to show. An airy touch, good timing, and graceful movement are primary prerequisites...
...high officer in the Irish Republican Army. Grateful and idealistic, he joins the underground struggle against England, but soon comes face to face with the usual conflict between love (Wynter) and duty. In the novel, the hero resolved it by selling his friends to the Tans; according to the script, the peace treaty conveniently gets him off the hook, and only the diehard Cagney has to die. Best bit: a dockside rumble in which Cagney. jazzy as ever with his side arms, sputters some real far-out riffs on his revolver. Worst fault: the inconsistency of speech. Four...