Word: spunk
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...fond too shallow. While no one would demand a trenchant political or psychological comment from romantic comedy, we do expect two distinct and compelling personalities whose collision will charm or amuse us. Maybe I'm prejudiced by American films (especially the screwball variety), but I want more quirkiness and spunk from the leads. Although Barrault and Lanoux are frequently endearing and fun to look at as a collection of handsome faces and gestures, there is no electricity in their dialogue. The decent, wholesome characters they play here will never insinuate themselves into your fantasies. Stripped of their comical situation...
...destined to be filmed, is just a slick version of 1930s tears-and-tinsel show biz sagas around which production numbers were draped like rented furs. The only enterprising recent musicals have been the work of Bob Fosse; the movie Cabaret and, on Broadway, Chicago abound in the same spunk and brash vi tality eulogized in That's Entertainment. Fosse is a brilliantly low-down spirit, an innovator, but he too has forsaken movie musicals for more serious undertakings, like Lenny...
Grumbling all the way, gargling his booze, Matthau is better than he has been in years, and all the kids are wonderful, full of spirit and spunk. (Inquires one fearless sad sack of a combative rival: "How'd you like me to stick that bat where the sun never shines?") The movie has some very traditional concerns-about the value of playing as opposed to winning, about trying to achieve a certain minimal dignity-but deals with them lightly and with charm...
...remain from the "E Street" group, and Tallent no longer fools around with tubas and accordians--the brass players on Born To Run are pros, on loan from other studios. What makes Born To Run frustrating to listen to is the lingering suspicion--no, firm conviction--that with the spunk of his original group, Bruce Springsteen would have produced a great record...
...lover and beats the rap, thanks to a slick mouthpiece, Billy Flynn (Jerry Orbach). This scarcely matters. What matters is the erotic poetry in motion that uncoils whenever Verdon and her sister in crime Velma Kelly (Chita Rivera) do their solos and duets. They pace the show with spunk incarnate. The chorus is jazzily bacchanalian, and Patricia Zipprodt's eye-riveting costumes swirl right out of a decadent Brechtian Berlin. Chicago is a cinch to take a bite out of the Big Apple...