Word: scriptful
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...script, by Huston and James Agee, is faithful to the spirit of C. S. Forester's 1935 novel. Bogart, cast as a Canadian instead of a Cockney, does the best acting of his career as the badgered rumpot who becomes a man and a lover against his will. Katharine Hepburn is excellent as the gaunt, freckled, fanatic spinster. Their contrasting personalities fill the film with good scenes, beginning with Bogart's tea-table agony as the indelicate rumbling of his stomach keeps interrupting Missionary Robert Morley's chitchat about dear old England...
...very good movie, or even the best Sinatra has made, but it does give his talents the best cinematic showcase they have had. Cast as a knockabout who is quick of wit and whim, generous and irascible by turns, Frankie handles his role, and the script's quip-studded dialogue, with cocky, easy charm. By his tricky phrasing and showmanlike delivery, he gives a lift to a score full of old hits, e.g., You're a Sweetheart, When You're Smiling, Old Black Magic...
Perhaps Director John Larson could do little with the script (the authors' first attempt, by the way), but he certainly might have attempted to eliminate a portion of the audience's squirming by toning down the delivery. John Blankenchip's settings, the play's one saving grace, are ingeniously devised to accommodate the wide variety of activities invariably occurring at the same time. JOSEPH P. LORENZ
...Civilian Information & Education office were horrified, adamantly "recommended" that the show go on. Eriko, they felt, had a mildly democratizing influence on listeners. Says Nagayama: "It was most sorrowful. We couldn't fight back; it was practically an order." Dutifully, Uchimura wrote the groom out of the script, replaced him with a dawdling suitor who would obviously be around for years to come...
...recommendations to one side, Author Uchimura finally gave in last week to his Japanese audience. Eriko, he announced, would call it quits come March. As a matter of fact, said Uchimura, Eriko could be disposed of with ease: "The script is so complicated now that we can end it any time. No one will even know the difference...