Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Majesty O'Keefe (Warner) may have a certain novelty for moviegoers who have not yet heard about how the natives were happy until the white man came. Money, says this script, grows on the coconut trees on the western Pacific island of Yap, but nobody bothers to pick it until Burt Lancaster makes port. He blackmails the poor natives into picking coconuts, and even becomes their king. But greed and lust soon pull the kingdom down, and the stage is set for love to conquer all. To satisfy the censors, somebody has to take the rap for Burt...
...good, fast script by Arnold Becker hits only the biggest bumps on the Globetrotters' road to glory: beginning with the team's hobo start in the late '20s, when a few Negro boys tooled through the Midwest in a fourth-hand Pierce Arrow, playing pickup games, winner take all, in barns and dry swimming pools, and ending when the Trotters won a "World Professional Championship Tournament" at Chicago...
...despite the script difficulties the acting is fine. Robert Morley as Gilbert and Maurice Evans as his partner bring a gusto and talent to their roles that almost cover up the inadequacies of what they are saying. Martyn Green, mostly singing, is the best Grossmith since Grossmith...
...this inexpensive picture with vulgar assurance. Actor Egan is almost her tough match. The minor parts, especially the barkeep's wife (Evelyn Scott) and a lecherous pants-presser (Percy Helton), are also well attended to. Producer Clarence Greene and Director Russell Rouse, who also collaborated on a competent script, deserve high credit. Having decided to serve cheap whisky, they had the wit and the courage to serve it straight...
...script makes a couple of pious passes at pointing a moral; it says that the community-the greedy tavernkeeper, a weak cop, some hotheaded and vicious citizens-is as much to blame for what happens as the young delinquents are, but it is hard to believe in such talk...