Word: plot
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Blue Angel is one of the few cherished pictures to which people flock almost everytime it is resurrected, and its plot is well known. Hard as it is to explain what makes any picture merely good, it is quite impossible to define the elements that make a picture worth seeing may times. It's not Marlene Dietrich alone. She's brassy and long legged, she's beautiful and gravel voiced: she's wonderful. But that can't be enough for motion picture immortality...
...There and Back," a ten-minute opera by Paul Hindemith, is more than merely clever--it is funny. The plot involves a husband (Barry Morley) who learns of the infidelity of his wife (Janet Wheeler). He shoots her and jumps out the window. At this point the lights dim, and a wise man (Robert Simon) appears. "Let us reverse this fate and make things turn back," he says. The husband jumps back in the window, and the action shifts into reverse, ending as it began. Obviously, the situation has almost limitless potentialities, most of which were realized in the performance...
...unnatural mother-daughter relationships. In one, an iron-willed mother has crushed her child's personality, in the other, a wispy woman vainly seeks the affection of her daughter, a shrill hysteric who detests her. Beyond this, however, the play cannot be reduced to any pattern. The plot is at least as diffuse as the conversation, and the principal roles range from the alarmingly neurotic to the quite mad. Take Gertrude Eastman-Cuevas (Miss Anderson). Though sometimes she has "shadows," which she dispells by drinking "fizzy water," she is usually hard as nails, nagging her daughter Molly with contempt...
...humor of this comedy depends much more on the acting than on the plot. To actor and audience the plot is absurd, but if the enthusiasm of the performers were credible, the drollery of the whole production would succeed. Director Charles Chrishten has spread looks of Zeal over the faces of his cast like make up. Unlike cosmetics, however, Chrichton's technique never comes off. One never believes that the people of Titfield are sincerely ecstatic when talking about their two car Zephyr. And worse, one hardly cares. The most amusing lines and a few way pokes at British socialism...
After a shaky start on last year's show, Donn Fischer's direction is imaginative and professional. None of the songs seem stuck into an irrelevant plot, and no one fronts and centers to sing them. The show flows from opening to finale. Stark Hesseltine's production is, of course, very good, and the costume committee, headed by Jill Howard, can well share credit for the glossy exterior of the show. Tony Herrey's sets also contributed greatly. They were bright and simple, and the theatre marquee, in particular, showed an intelligent use of the Pudding's limited space...