Word: stella
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...Stella (20th Century-Fox), based on Novelist Doris Miles Disney's* story of a raffish family's efforts to hornswoggle an insurance company out of $20,000 in death benefits, gives Actor David Wayne his first chance to cut loose with the comic talent he displayed in Broadway's Finian's Rainbow and Mister Roberts. With his help, Writer-Director Claude Binyon squeezes enough chuckles out of a series of corpses to make up for a romantic subplot that is dead on its feet...
...picture manages nevertheless to make its irreverence amusing while generally clearing the hurdles of poor taste. It trips only when it tries to be conventional, i.e., with a love triangle in which Victor Mature, as a claims investigator, and local Insurance Agent Leif Erickson compete for the affections of Stella (Ann Sheridan), the family breadwinner, who is horrified by the schemes hatched by her ne'er-do-well relatives. As the kind of simple-shrewd, irresponsible character he plays best, Wayne is really the star of the movie, and he gets fine support from Frank Fontaine, who plays...
...reflection, Father Cawder senses his defeat: he has denied the lowly. Though the carnival has left town, he starts in laborious search of Diamond and Stella, determined to persuade them that Christian charity is for them too. Before he is through, the priest has waded through a world of sordid crime and violent death. But Father Cawder has learned the force of the words he had once mechanically spoken to Diamond: "It's no part of a priest's business to pass on people like a judge. A priest has no means of doing so even...
...very off-one-shoulder black dress and a huge black hat, she managed to convey to the eye what the perfume she was wearing was supposed to tell the nose. Her manager, a light blond, told us that in her less jungle-like moments La Voodoo was known as Stella Danfray. They were just in from Hollywood where DcMille had given her a screen test. And how did La Voodoo like Hollywood? "Ect is so complex, so hectic. But zee country ees so beautiful." What interested her most in the States? She looked around for her manager who had gone...
...only man who seemed completely at ease was the bartender, who was polishing glasses with a towel. I watched Stella's manager rescue her from her group of admirers, and lead her over to the buyers and the fourth estate. The bartender looked up. "Funny thing," he said, "We had a party for some French people here a few weeks ago, and all they drank was champagne...