Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Writer-Director Bryan Forbes (The Wrong Box) has spared nothing-certainly not the viewer-in his pitiless case history. He spins out his catalogue of age's miseries to somewhat excessive length. But Dame Edith, 79, gives a superb performance that soars above the script. Hobbling on thick ankles that can no longer bear their burden, querulously demanding a pair of new shoes "nicely styled but not too racy," she has created new proof that for great actresses there is still no age limit...
...liquor-laden lawman, Mitchum is a perfect foil for Wayne, although only the lopsided length of their roles keeps Arthur Hunnicutt, one of the best character actors in Hollywood, from stealing the film. In a script full of raucous frontier humor, the most amusing scene slyly comments on the state of the western today. At the fadeout, Wayne has been pinked in the knee, Mitchum in the thigh. With crutches as swagger sticks, they limp triumphantly past the camera-two old pros demonstrating that they are better on one good leg apiece than most of the younger stars...
...story is full of opportunities for drama, but the audience has only the script's word that The Naked Runner is a suspense film. Other than swiveling a pair of nervous ferret eyes, Sinatra shows no hint of emotion. Around him are a cast of inept unknowns, many of whom seem to believe that such dialogue as "Get dressssed, ve are goink for a drive," is German for sinister. Director Sidney Furie confuses tension and pretension, hokes up the story with odd-angle camera shots-of a man bicycling alone across a huge airstrip, a confrontation with the enemy...
...sheer drama of this play is so intense that it often makes the words of the script sound insignificant. The stage movement flows like burning lava. Babe is the rare director who can make a character say more in utter stillness than in long speeches. Time after time he strikes precisely the right movements, theatrical but true. His direction is smooth as a Rolls Royce and has the same quality of moving you without jarring you. When he uses shock, he uses it almost gently, to elict passion...
From the raw material of this domestic calamity, the producer-director team of John and Roy Boulting have managed to make a situation comedy of piquant delicacy. The camera, like a sensitive visitor, never overstays its welcome when the newlyweds are together. The script, by Bill Naughton (Alfie), has a hundred opportunities to snigger but passes them all by with a warm smile. Moreover, The Family Way often evokes the serious undertones of a D. H. Lawrence story, as it explores the couple's life and the sexual attitudes that lie beneath their parents' working-class platitudes...