Word: slapsticker
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...mood of A Bell for Adano is bitter. Its humor is raucous and wild. At its worst, it descends to college humorous magazine slapstick. At its best it is a superb piece of reporting. Read unimaginatively, it is a deadly account of U.S. official incompetence. Stripped of its humor, it is the story of a battle for democracy, no less real for being fought without arms, more important than the military engagement that preceded...
Thriving, too, is that great standby, the pantomime-ostensibly for youngsters but, like the American circus, something that most parents can't wait to take the children to. Embroidering a fairy tale or nursery rhyme with slapstick and music, the pantomime is rich in traditions. The hero is always played by a girl, the ugly old dame by a man; and there is usually a stuffed cat or dog. Biggest pantomime hit is Humpty Dumpty, breaking all records at the Coliseum to the tune of ?9,000 a week. Its animal is a stuffed terrier, that, like the rubber...
...Johnson play themselves, supposedly banned from their studio by an irate producer. Undaunted, they form their own company, with Franchot Tone as director and a would-be millionaire as financial backer. Tone, as talent scout, discovers the love interest--Marsha Hunt. In an hour and a quarter of slapstick "humor" and distorted romance, the bedlam increases, until climaxed by the sale of the movie-within-a-movie for over a million dollars (stage money...
...Year-of a special sort. He had contributed heavily toward the sanity of the world; the bullying menace that ended with pie all over his face. What had entered the stage so pompously, dressed to "live like a lion," now fell through the trapdoor in truest slapstick fashion. For a while, the trains had arrived on time, and then the plane came almost too late...
...Haviland's own description of the plot. She plays the rich princess to Robert Cummings' poor boy, while Charles Coburn makes a gruff fairy godfather. The worst that can be said of them is that Olivia is merely silly in a few scenes and that Cummings sometimes sinks to slapstick, though even much of that is managed expertly enough to be funny...