Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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They had written the script themselves. Sample: after a careful explanation of the correct stance, Sarah hits a ball far to the right of Pauline, who ignores it, then does a double take: "Oh, are you supposed to run after it?" Sarah tells Pauline: "You're holding your arm wrong." Replies Pauline: "I can't do much about it. I was born with my arm attached to my shoulder." When they quit clowning and played tennis, the crowd usually breathed a sigh of relief...
...laughs than in illustrating what a man can do to himself for the sake of money. Some of the picture's trimmings are shrewder stuff. There are viciously funny glimpses of a commercial photographer, a comedian (Keenan Wynn), an actor's agent (Edward Arnold) and two skilled script-plumbers; and the singing commercials are as horribly funny as the real thing. Ava Gardner is lush as the nightclub singer and Clark Gable plays his huckster firmly...
...within the dull plot, which seems to have been doped out by two cynical script-writers over a short beer, is some worthwhile stuff. The photography is for the most part excellent, especially a scene of a biplane disintegrating in the air in a thunderstorm. In fact, the parts of the movie that concern the flying are all good. Howard Da Silva, playing the worried owner of the airlines, is natural and convincing. William Bendix takes over every scene in which he is, as a hedgehopping pilot and a friend of the family. One wishes that the movie had stuck...
Some of the people who worked on the film and acted in it plainly have a real feeling for jazz and the feeling shows up on the screen with honesty and warmth. The genial touch of Elliott Paul (see BOOKS) is often clear in the script; the Negro musicians-notably Armstrong, Singer Billie Holiday, Trombonist Kid Ory and Guitarist Bud Scott-act and play their music with freedom and pleasure. At the end, regrettably, jazz becomes "respectable"-probably the worst break it could...
Hollywood benignly agreed that Playwright McGiver was ready for some graduate work. Cinemogul David O. Selznick sent him the script of the forthcoming Portrait of Jenny, asked if McGiver would please, for good Hollywood money, just touch up the Irish dialogue...