Word: scripted
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Friday, March 27 BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATER (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Rod Steiger as a Hollywood movie czar, in a script by Rod Serling...
Even the best efforts of a fine cast fail to transform the criticially poor script. Miss De Carlo is nice to look at, but seems as silly as her lines. Alan Mowbray, who plays her father, is so bored he's boring. And Irving Jacobson, a strange combination of Eddie Cantor and Mr. Magoo, as Mr. Foreman, is as cliched a first generation imigrant as you'll ever want...
...Randy Lindel, who plays Steckel, a town oaf, is often tiresome in his buffoonery: his eating scene at the beginning of the third act, however, is a wonderful replica of Squire Western's gluttony in Tom Jones. Lucian Russel, as Odario, sprinkles an appalling covetousness into the otherwise romantic script, grabbing for jewels and selling his lovely daughter. Randy Pyle, who plays the ghost of Steckel's father, conveys slightly more the circus clown parodying Hamlet than the spectre, although he fits both parts equally well...
Another good performance comes from Michael Ehrhardt, who plays Cliff Lewis, the "no man's land" in the war between Jimmy and Alison. Part of Ehrhardt's work was done for him by the script--he need only speak his lines and let the other characters rage against him to be effectively lovable. Happily, Ehrhardt does more. He plays Jimmy's punching bag with a surprising kindness, and his few moments of anger are that much more convincing...
...office thrust upon him, or is he merely a self-appointed martyr in search of his Cain? Given a mass of ambiguities to project, Burton projects them remarkably well. He daringly meets the competition offered by O'Toole with a sober, almost stubbornly restrained performance-and if the script defeats him, his commanding presence and magnificent voice carry him a long way. The scene of his assassination at Canterbury Cathedral brings the film to a bloody, bristling climax...