The Pickwick Papers

Langley takes on the directing, which is very good, as witness Mr. Winkle in the water, twice.

Mrs. Hunter’s fancy dress literary breakfast is to the life, the very life.

But that is by the way, so are Mr. Jingle and Mrs. Bardell, even Dodson & Fogg and the judge and Buzfuz and Miss Tompkins and Miss Witherfield, entirely out of the way, therefore the Pickwick Club must go to meet them.

Bosley Crowther never knew what a thing had appeared before him as he wrote his review for the New York Times, which is lamentable.

Variety had a savor of it, Halliwell as so often undertook to second Crowther’s opinion.

Our Girl Friday

The various reasons for wishing the ship sunk to hell and gone out of this.

Langley set free upon the world, it splits its sides and finds an island haven.

The lights out shipwreck is congruent to Beat the Devil (dir. John Huston).

A.W. of the New York Times, “lackluster farce”.

Variety, “this British effort does not quite come up to expectations.”

Time Out, “British sex comedy of 1954”.

Such a dreamy vision, the professor, the journalist, the stoker, the girl protected from a fortune hunter, or Snow White and the Three Dwarves, Theory, Weary, and Beery, “the Swiss Family Ramsbottom.”

The theme is “If You Were the Only Girl”, score by Ronald Binge, color cinematography by Wilkie Cooper (Alan Hume as Allan, cameraman).

“Onny Swocky Mally Ponce.”

It gets described as “coy sex comedy... pretty unbearable” in Halliwell’s Film Guide.

“I’m sorry, were you talking to me, or chewing a brick?”

Lovely steady long takes the actors breeze through, the camera perfectly controlled. Perfectly beautiful island views, of course.

“You’re the only man I’ve ever met who isn’t a humbug.”

“And you’re like every other girl I ever met, you can’t afford not to be a humbug.” So the critics are served willy-nilly with a slice of Shaw fresh off the cart and no mistake.