Word: viertel
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...story was scripted by Director Huston and Peter Viertel from an episode in the novel Rough Sketch by Robert Sylvester. It concerns the hard-jawed heroics of a young Cuban-American revolutionist (John Garfield), who recruits a handful of assistant revolutionaries, including a slant-eyed girl named China Valdes (Jennifer Jones). Garfield puts his crew to work digging a tunnel from the cellar of Jennifer's home to a nearby cemetery. His lurid plan: to blow the dictator and his cabinet to smithereens as they stand about the family tomb of a bigwig senator whom Garfield has already earmarked...
...ourtain falls on a stage covered with assorted corpses, an old man--one of the survivors--says "I didn't mean no harm," a statement which can be applied to Irwin Shaw and Peter Viertel, to the management of the Harvard Dramatic Club, and to almost everybody production. Shaw and Viertel, who wrote "The Survivors," far from meaning harm, appear to have attempted to creste an allegory for our times, a dramatization of the concept that unreasonable hatred and stupidity make nations, as well as men, wipe each other out of existence. But the play itself adds up to little...
...suave elegances of Vienna get barely a nod; even the sets and costumes lack lure. The Waltz King's own music has been reduced to a minimum and revamped to no good end. Most of the tunes in Mr. Strauss are by Robert (Zwei Herzen im Drei-Viertel Takt) Stolz, and the best of them are not more than agreeable...
That this depressing story remains above-average entertainment is mainly due to incisive writing (by Scenarists Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel), and to direction by Vincent Sherman that results in honest, intelligent acting by an excellent cast. Jack Carson's job as a simpleminded, big-hearted hoofer is masterly; Dennis
This cogent and moving episode absorbs about an hour of film. For the next hour Screenwriters Samuel Hoffenstein, Salka Viertel and S. N. Behrman seem undecided what to do for story matter. They fall back on the facts taught in schools about their hero's life. Napoleon divorces Josephine (out of camera range). He arranges to wed Habsburg Marie Louise. Marie Walewska is disgusted. Says she: "'The savior of Europe has become a son-in-law." Not until after the retreat from Moscow does Marie have much more to do with the Emperor, except for bearing...