i sat down with good expectations - what wasn't to like? the mysterious orient, a fine cast, a capable director, odets at work on the script...
let's start with the script: the lines he had to mouth over and over made cooper sound like an automated propaganda-doll getting its string pulled till it frayed. he was absolutely tiresome in his protestations of good intentions against a backdrop of evil times; i think it must be a feat to write lines that cooper couldn't make seem fresh, lines that he could dust with a laconic wit. i can only imagine that the agenda beneath all this was to lay bare the evils of the rapacious, fascist warlords for folks at home too depressed to much care about how someone else was also having troubles getting dinner on the table; the script certainly was making a wooden effort to go beyond mere entertainment and to politically educate. no subtlety, no finesse, no nuance was wasted on this script. where some dry wit, as in casablanca, might have told the tale we are treated to lectures.
so, that is my complaint. i liked the actors. they certainly did their best with the material, but this ain't no 'for whom the bells toll' - and maybe it could have been.... don e.
let's start with the script: the lines he had to mouth over and over made cooper sound like an automated propaganda-doll getting its string pulled till it frayed. he was absolutely tiresome in his protestations of good intentions against a backdrop of evil times; i think it must be a feat to write lines that cooper couldn't make seem fresh, lines that he could dust with a laconic wit. i can only imagine that the agenda beneath all this was to lay bare the evils of the rapacious, fascist warlords for folks at home too depressed to much care about how someone else was also having troubles getting dinner on the table; the script certainly was making a wooden effort to go beyond mere entertainment and to politically educate. no subtlety, no finesse, no nuance was wasted on this script. where some dry wit, as in casablanca, might have told the tale we are treated to lectures.
so, that is my complaint. i liked the actors. they certainly did their best with the material, but this ain't no 'for whom the bells toll' - and maybe it could have been.... don e.