Word: witting
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With all its amusement, the film is not strictly a comedy, being the best sort of adventure, spiced with wit, but whose long suit is still action. The fact that the action goes nowhere, is never really resolved, and that the only discernable moral of the film is that continuity, clear story line and pointed action are not indispensable--these do not obstruct one's enjoyment of the picture. The only necessities are wonderful script, imaginative director and the kind of super-talented cast that is in Beat the Devil...
...committed after he was shot down over enemy territory in Korea on July 8, 1952 and taken prisoner. Helpless, cold, sick, subject to continuous brainwashing, he "confessed" (as did 35 other lower-ranking U.S. prisoners of war) in great detail to an enormous lie-to wit, that the U.S. had used germ warfare against the Chinese Reds. On March 12, 1953 Russia's Andrei Vishinsky laid his statement before the General Assembly of the United Nations...
...France is the eldest daughter of the church," a wit once observed, "but she's the youngest daughter when it comes to getting into mischief." The mischievous daughter was fairly vibrating with volubility this week over an old question: the parental authority of Rome...
...play even has scattered bright spots of its own: Playwright Appell shows a knack for brightly stenciling familiar characters and situations, and if his dialogue seldom has wit, it often has sass. Thanks to a good cast, Lullaby coaxes a certain amount of routine amusement, first out of Mama's-Boy Meets Girl, then out of depicting home and mother as more like oil and water. But to such standbys of comedy it brings no new insight and only limited verve. Hence it is forced into utter disregard for tone-one minute realistic comedy, the next shameless shenanigans...
...Skelton's second attempt in as many pictures to play it straight. If he had succeeded, The Great Diamond Robbery might have been an even more amusing picture than Half a Hero (TIME, Nov. 9). Instead, the stiff upper lip of a surprisingly mature wit goes into a maudlin flap of baby talk before the end of the first reel. Nevertheless, the plot is so neatly stacked, and the rest of the players so well handled by Director Robert Z. Leonard, that the moviegoer gets a pretty good deal...