Word: screenplay
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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...
...picture is fast on swordplay, heavy on overplay and light on screenplay. It begins with Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd), late of the Irish wars, winning an audience with the Queen; he wants to take three ships to the New World there to work for the greater glory of the 'British Empah." But the weary pan-amorous Elizabeth, who lost Errol Flynn back in the first film, likes the cut of Raleigh's jib- and his beard too. He is blunt, charming, gay, adventurous and never forgets to throw his cloak over mud puddles. He accepts...
...ever-present screenplay does have some merits. It is the story of that disappearing rarity, a widowed British millionaire, who wants to teach his 20-year-old son the facts of life. Logically enough, the pair go to Paris, where the father himself learns something about modern technique from a salesgirl in her teeens while an experienced woman of the world takes charge of the son's education. The mechanics of this upside-down situation run smoothly enough until near the end, when they clank to a stop with a rather sudden resolution...
...Waterfront, a black-and-white, normal-width movie made in New Jersey, was named 1954's best picture, picked up seven other Oscars-e.g., for best actor, Marlon Brando; best supporting actress, Eva Marie Saint; best director, Elia Kazan; best story and screenplay, Budd Schulberg...
Jean Cocteau's first English language movie has had its title routinely sexified from Les Parents Terribles to Intimate Relations, but current visitors to the Beacon Hill will be glad to find that Cocteau, no matter what title he uses, well merits his reputation for unorthodox screenplay...