Word: plotting
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...film photographed in proper pre-Mazdaian darkness, it becomes, after a while, a tiresome puzzle even to identify the various members of the large and distinguished cast, many of whom possess faces of singular peculiarity. The scenario is not easy to follow, either. This is because the numerous sub-plots have not been integrated and are told in quick episodic fashion which is further aggravated by the slashing of whole scenes from the American version. Film continuity, while not always a prescribed virtue, would have been helpful here because no single character, not even Nicholas, is given enough footage...
...Bemelmans type but infinitely less genial: Herr Zipfl is the Burgermeister of a Russian-controlled Austrian town. Behind a mask of craven geniality, he is rather resentful of the fact that the Russian military is more interested (justifiably, I think) in his dog, than in him. The plot, the ideas, and the characters of "Herr Zipfl's Revolt" emerge quite naturally and aimply from the relentless simplicity of Mr. Fodor's style...
Through Dr. Mitchell, the Authors Bellamann attempt what amounts to a mass psychoanalysis of the town of Kings Row. Rape, murder and lesser sins are examined in language that seems lifted from a handbook of psychiatric cliches. And thanks to a brazenly contrived plot, good is rewarded and evil gets its come-uppance with a sureness and thoroughness that real life rarely witnesses...
Whenever Orson Welles starts his fertile mind working on a picture, the result is going to be, to put it mildly, out of the ordinary. Welles wrote, produced, directed, and took the lead role in "The Lady from Shanghai," which has a more complex plot than did "The Big Sleep" a few years back, and which gets Welles into more unusual situations than Bugs Bunny ever dreamed...
...scenes in "The Lady from Shanghai," from New York to the West Indies to San Francisco, are all fresh as well as realistic, and the peculiar Welles touch is always there. The tortuonsness of the plot will provoke interest and armchair detective work rather than boredom, but it is important to make sure of the times and arrive at the beginning of the picture...