I’ve been on a bit of a Ronald Colman kick lately, but it was happenstance that this was another film written by Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor, quite different from It Should Happen to You, except for the NYC setting, which they render here with a thick theatrical texture -- onstage, backstage, and offstage -- and in surprisingly noirish tones. Colman is a Broadway actor with a tendency to assume the personality of his characters, so there’s trouble afoot when he’s lured into playing Othello. Shelley Winters is a young waitress who suffers Desdemona’s fate and Signe Hasso is Colman’s ex-wife and co-star who almost does the same onstage. Colman’s bravura dual role won him his only Oscar; his performance is hammy but satisfyingly so, like an overstuffed sandwich at the Carnegie deli. (1947, dvd, n.) *7-*
1 comment:
what a fine, literate set of reviews.....far superior to most newspaper or magazine summaries. loved your answer to the woman's rant, too.
ike from chicago
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