Word: scriptful
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...Script-Tease. First trouble was to reduce the 1,037-page novel to a workable Hollywood script...
Tortoisy Mr. Taft was nowhere. He had piled one inept act on another, bumbled when the script called for a gag, stumbled over his own and others' feet. In Iowa he denounced corn loans the day the Agriculture Department unloosed $70,000,000 in corn loans to Iowa; in Kansas City he crossed a year-old A. F. of L. picket line for no good reason; in Texas he shot his first deer, his first turkey, was photographed in business suit and starched collar gingerly holding the dead bird-a picture that brought a wave of nostalgic memories...
...exhibitionist extraordinary. True to form, Rooney has mugged and hogged his way through his latest picture. "Babes in Arms," but what is not in the least true to form, he's good! With only Judy Carland and Charles Winninger to help him drag a so-so cast through the script, he has taken the show on his own Napoleonic shoulders and carried it through to Garcia. Along with being able to sing tap-dance play the piano, imitate Roosevelt, and other odd jobs, it might even he said that Rooney can act. His introduction to the problem of smoking...
Another Thin Man is the third working.* Shot in 36 days with extreme care by the same producer and director, again using a script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, it brought back William Powell as smart Detective Nick Charles, Myrna Loy as Nora, his imperturbable wife, Asta (cranky and snappy after a nervous breakdown) as their dog. It had the Thin Man's pace, bounce and snappy dialogue, exciting murder and air of amiable dipsomania. Nick and Nora take the pandemonium that passes for their domestic life with the same unquenchable good humor, poise, charm and thirst...
...emphasis has been shifted from the character of the kind to the horror of his crimes, and the result is a gruesome nightmare of sudden death with but few elements of constructive drama. Basil Rathbone, as the king, happily avoids overacting and creates a reasonably credible character; but the script and the direction are against him. That amiable Englishman, Boris Karloff, is made the center of interest, and the results are as expected. Costumed settings and a capable supporting cast strive valiantly, and occasionally succeed in raising the level of the picture to that of historical drama; but the whole...