Word: slapstick
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...also an old-timer, is a sophisticated piece about a confidence woman and the heir to the fortunes of Pike's Pale, "The Ale that Won for Yale." The dialogue abounds in double entendres of the highest order. At the same time, "The Lady Eve" has its share of slapstick, too. Henry Fonda, as the slow-witted heir, takes no less than nine pratfalls in the course of the movie...
There was a touch of slapstick in the shot of a delegate dozing off during a tedious speech and being fussily wakened by an aide who had noticed that the TV camera was recording the cat nap. Particularly effective on TV is the contrast between the tuned-down but passionate voices of the Iron Curtain delegates, speaking in their native tongues, and the cool, detached accents of the English interpreters giving a running translation of the speeches as they are being made...
...lines and the acting are what raises the picture above the level of all this tripe. Except for two or three lapses into straight slapstick and a somewhat corny climax, the dialogue is consistently sharp, unexpected, and often brilliant. Michael Wilding, as lord and footman, gets just the right blend of cynicism and playfulness, though his eyes do twinkle a bit too much on occasion, Anna Neagle is pleasantly attractive and eager in the female lead, and she also demonstrates that infuriating twinkle. Joshua, portrayed by Tom Walls is a marvelous English-gentleman type, both in word and deed...
...Blue (Paramount) is musical slapstick featuring Betty Hutton who, given a few comic situations and lively rhythms, appears to be a fissionable element exploding into energy and noise...
...Cage's chief claim to novelty is that Lowry has exaggerated it, overplayed it and touched it up with interludes of near-slapstick adventure. His Richard Black of Gorker Street in Cincinnati decides to become a great writer at the age of nine, and on his attic typewriter pounds out stories of Tan the Wonder Dog, of Detective Jim Burdett, of the tenth-round comeback of Battling Ramsey. Later, influenced by Caldwell, Hemingway and Faulkner, he turns out endless stories of prostitutes, gangsters, murderers. In college he edits a highbrow magazine and runs away with the wife (five years...