Word: witting
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Churchill was in his element, mingling, pantomime and frolic, spilling wit like wine. He enumerated the party's successes and, like the headmaster of Harrow, distributed congratulations to his blushing middle-aged ministers. To each he made a play of peering along the rows to find the next recipient of his favors. He kept each one in suspense until his turn came...
...into Sabrina Fair, the two stars might have a word with author Samuel Taylor. Taylor has provided them with a parody of Shavian comedy. Shaw's good-natured snobbery, his interminable stretches of dialogue, his predictable surprise ending are all belabored here. Lacking only is Shaw's sincerity and wit: In the part forced on Cotten, the "superman" seems barely capable of running his own life. And any clever lines are spare indeed, while almost-clever lines pop up again and again to mar the play...
...night, he comes home moderately looped, his wife says, "Coming home drunk, well, I'll give you apiece of my mind." Holloway counters with "It will have to be a very small piece, you don't have much to spare." Such exchanges continue with a regularity and plane of wit that is indeed wonderful. The reductio ad absurdum of "Ways and Means," a parasite couple of the international set who induce a burglar to rob their hostess is a pleasant cordial to end the film. Valeric Hobson and Nigel Patrick play the leads...
Into the Gap. By the time Winchell got to the big radio money in 1944, Edgar Bergen was the world's most successful ventriloquist. But was it ventriloquism? On a sightless medium, it was less an illusion than high aural comedy by a man with a natural wit and an educated larynx. Television was another matter. Bergen, his technique rusty after radio, made a few exploratory TV appearances, then went off to semi-retirement to think things over and work on his movie autobiography (From Little Acorns). Into the gap streaked Winchell, his ventriloquial skills razor-sharp...
...doom 3-D as well as ordinary "flat" movies. For the first feature in gigantic CinemaScope, Producer Frank Ross came forward with a gigantic story: early Christianity under the Roman Empire. Based on the famed bestseller of the late Rev. Lloyd C. Douglas, the film contains more piety than wit and more spectacle than humanity, but it is ably served by a competent cast headed by Britain's Richard (My Cousin Rachel) Burton...