Word: shavelson
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...Started in Naples (Shavelson-Rose; Paramount) ends, at least as far as its interest for adults is concerned, when Clark Gable and Sophia Loren engage in a water ballet pas de deux in the Blue Grotto. But this foolishness does not occur until fairly late in the film, and what precedes it is noisy, cheerful and frequently funny. A good part of the reason is a nine-year-old rowdy named Marietto, who plays an Italian urchin and clowns well enough to deserve two names...
...brood. But, at tedious length, he is persuaded by his agent to drag all seven of the urchins into vaudeville. They are a smash hit, and one of the boys improves his backstage hours by becoming an expert crapshooter, another a skilled Peeping Tom. And now Writer-Director Melville Shavelson adds a predictable turn of the dramatic screw: Hope's bitter sister-in-law protests to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and Foy and family are haled into court. The children deliver impassioned appeals for Papa, while Papa sums up with a thundering speech...
...this tame foundation, Scripter Melville Shavelson attempts to build a wild farce involving missing bank funds, a $60,000 horse-race parlay, and a remarkably uninspired police chase. At regular intervals, Groucho Marx appears to give advice to the lovelorn, but his best bits have no relation to the plot and are palely reminiscent of scenes from earlier Marx Brothers movies. Among its other novelties, Double Dynamite does a reverse on standard Hollywood nepotism: it was produced by 3 3 -year-old Irving Cummings Jr., and directed by his 63-year-old father...