Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...doubling production, he cut overhead costs per picture in half. He shortened shooting schedules, reduced the average number of writers per script from 7.3 to 1.2, rooted out dead wood, brought in fresh directing and producing talent...
...buck private at training camp" series you get a chance to see the buddy system at work. One guy is wise, the other is dumb, and the script writer is the silent third party who applies old jokes to new faces...
...skillful script keeps the story moving through the maze of flashbacks within flashbacks. Each violent episode, well milked of its own suspense, falls into a place where it counts most in building tension for the whole movie. The murder retailers do such a big business over such a short period that the picture gets a bit silly when it ought to be chilling. But it never gets dull. The thugs (notably Ted de Corsia, Zero Mostel, Everett Sloane) are well cast and played. Even Tough Guy Bogart, in a role happily without romantic attachments, seems shocked by the lethal goings...
Seven Days to Noon is an interesting picture. The Boulting brothers, Roy and John, who produced, edited, and directed the film (Roy was also co-author of the script) must be given the credit for this. The acting is uniformly good and the character-sketching is delicate...
What should be Operation Pacific's strongest point proves its major disappointment: the action at sea. The script makes Wayne's submarine do everything that a submarine can (and perhaps, a moviegoer may suspect, some things that it cannot). But the fighting takes place on the bravado level of an adventure story, e.g., Wayne dives overboard to swim to the rescue of a downed fighter pilot. Even on that level, the film develops little suspense. By applying realism to technical jargon rather than to such essentials as character, mood and incident, the picture never conveys the submariners...