Word: plot
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...main trouble with it all is that it's no longer Bleak House. Its story might just squeak through as something called Lady Dedlock's Secret, though even the book's main plot gets misted over, besides being by now almost too stagy for the stage. And though the drastic cutting at times has its points-it largely silences sweet, virtuous-Esther Summerson, that English cousin of Elsie Dinsmore-it far oftener has its penalties. All but vanished are the things that really make Bleak House notable-its satire on the Court of Chancery, its vast, varied...
House of Wax may have three dimensions; the plot has one, at best. It used to be known as The Murder in the Waxwork Museum or something close to that, when it was a flattie. If you've seen The Phantom of the Opera or the Hunchback of Notre Dame you have the general outline already. The only thing the latter pictures have that House of Wax doesn't is scenes of people jumping, falling, or being pushed from high places. Hollywood has missed a trick...
...direction and acting are more restrained than the plot. Celia (Brief Encounter) Johnson makes the part of a dedicated probation officer warmly moving. As a retired Colonial-Office official who decides to take up probation work, Cecil Parker brings a jauntily sly humor to his role...
...System (Warner) methodically goes through the steps of putting together a crime melodrama. But it has far too little action, is much too flabby and too gabby. The plot: a powerful newspaper publisher (Fay Roope) objects to his daughter (Joan Weldon) associating with Gambling Boss Frank Lovejoy. Things end fairly happily when Gangster Lovejoy, having come to the conclusion that "you can't run a clean sewer," spills all to a crime investigating committee and goes off to prison knowing that Joan will wait...
...show, and even slapstick has charm in his hands. Rene Clair's direction keeps the pace fast and light, never dragging behind Chevalier's cavorting. Essentially trite in plot, Le Silence Est D'Or is still great fun, and the reason is Chevalier...