Word: plot
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...royalist to the tip of his long, aristocratic nose, he went into exile in 1918 after King Constantine was deposed, but a couple of years later came back as a staff officer. After taking part in the campaign against Turkey, he was bounced from the army for joining a plot to restore the monarchy under George II, Constantine's son. But in 1935 he took a leading part in a coup d'état which got George II back his crown by means of a fake plebiscite. Said Papagos: "The only unethical act of my career." Years later...
...tinkering with the rules. It was struck a staggering blow in the last century when a group of losers in Toledo devised "Jack-Pots," which called for an ante before the deal, and jacks or better to open. A Southern gentleman named John Blackbridge fought back against this Northern plot to ruin the game. In 1879 he wrote: "[It is] as if one should be obliged every few minutes to stop playing poker and waste some chips purchasing tickets in a turkey raffle...
...plot is pat, the situations cliché, and the novel's real worth lies in the embroidery with which Author Spring (My Son, My Son) surrounds that crimson gown. The rich and reverent descriptions of the English scene are worth the price of admission, as are some of the characters-especially Chad's Dickensian Uncle Arthur, a glutton who grows auriculae and dotes on a skinny whippet...
...Desperate Hours, as a matter of fact, is quite complex throughout. William Wyler's direction has decorated the plot with small incidents and byplay which illuminate the characters but do not slow down the speed with which the picture races to its climax. Nor does Wyler ever stop to interject some sort of vague message or a commentary on such topics as police corruption. There is a statement about that, but it has its function in the story. And although the film does not strain for a message, it still has a point: a man's greatest dignity comes from...
Unfortunately, the screenplay by Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat, and Val Valentine is less successful than the actors. It does not matter very much that the plot, which centers loosely around the theft of a racehorse, is hopelessly confused. Many of the comic situations, however, are strained and too farcical to be genuinely funny, and the punch-lines of some of the jokes are left lying around so long that they finally drop out altogether. As a result, the film lacks much of the spontaneity of the Searle originals...