Word: underplaying
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Movies produced or directed by Clarence Brown (Flesh and the Devil, National Velvet") are not likely to be commonplace. Intruder is an honest attempt to picture the South as it actually is, but Brown's efforts to underplay the sensational and the macabre material lead to an impression of stiffness. The menacing events are pictured with such a reaching for poetic blandness that, by contrast, an energetic shot of the sheriff whipping up some scrambled eggs becomes a hardhitting, action-filled image...
...high time, perhaps, that readers and reviewers take a positive attitude towards the Advocate. The tendency in the past has been to emphasize its rather obvious deficiencies and to overlook or underplay the genuine talent which now and then appears on its pages...
...card-playing Papa Gershwin, Morris Carnovsky blends humility, humor and awesome respect for his gifted son. ("How nice you write it out, Georgie, such black ink," he says, examining in uncomprehending wonder George's first musical manuscript.) Herbert Rudley and Albert Basserman underplay with moving simplicity the difficult roles of a retiring, satellite brother and a music teacher distrustful of Mammon's claims on his favorite pupil. Oscar Levant, as himself, needs no acting skill to project his practiced cockiness, but respect for his late friend in real life has given his comic relief performance an unexpected depth...