For 17,760 reviews, this publication has graded:
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52% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.3 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
| Highest review score: | IMAX: Hubble 3D | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest review score: | Divorce: The Musical |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 9,121 out of 17760
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Mixed: 7,003 out of 17760
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Negative: 1,636 out of 17760
17760
movie
reviews
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Some Like It Hot, directed in masterly style by Billy Wilder, is probably the funniest picture of recent memory. It's a whacky, clever, farcical comedy that starts off like a firecracker and keeps on throwing off lively sparks till the very end.- Variety
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There are a good many laughs on this simple premise and the script’s exploitation of them. The only time the film falters badly is in its choice of a gimmick to get the boy-who-turns-into-a-dog turned back, for good and all, into a boy.- Variety
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A film of often extraordinary quality. It manages, within the framework of a tense and tragic situation, to convey the beauty of a young and inquiring spirit that soars beyond the cramped confinement of the Frank family's hideout in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.- Variety
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Lana Turner is outstanding in the pivotal role played in Universal’s 1934 version by Claudette Colbert.- Variety
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Some of the best parts of the picture are those dealing with the three good fairies, spoken and sung by Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allen and Barbara Luddy.- Variety
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The story is pure melodrama, despite the intention of the original novel’s author, James Jones, to invest it with greater stature. But the integrity with which the film is handled by all its contributors lifts it at times to tragedy.- Variety
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Much of the appeal of Terence Rattigan's play was due to the remarkable change in characterization they were able to make as they assumed different roles in each of the segents. Rattigan and John Gay have masterfully blended the two playlets into one literate and absorbing full-length film.- Variety
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Somewhat long for a comedy, Jacques Tati's film has inventiveness, gags, warmth and a 'poetic' approach to satire.- Variety
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Film has superior technical narrative, impressive lensing and thesping.- Variety
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It captures the dignity and the stubborness of the old man, and it is tender in his final defeat. And yet it isn’t a completely satisfying picture. There are long and arid stretches, when it seems as if producer and director were merely trying to fill time.- Variety
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Although the story – based on Donald Hamilton’s novel, with Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler credited with the screen adaptation – is dwarfed by the scenic outpourings, The Big Country is nonetheless armed with a serviceable, adult western yarn.- Variety
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The performances by Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are virtually flawless. Poitier captures all of the moody violence of the convict, serving time because he assaulted a white man who had insulted him. It is a cunning, totally intelligent portrayal that rings powerfully true.- Variety
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Taylor has a major credit with her portrayal of Maggie. The frustrations and desires, both as a person and a woman, the warmth and understanding she molds, the loveliness that is more than a well-turned nose – all these are part of a well-accented, perceptive interpretation.- Variety
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One strong factor of the picture is its unusual believability. It is told as a mystery suspense story, so that it has a compelling interest aside from its macabre effects. There is an appealing and poignant romance between Owens and Hedison, which adds to the reality of the story, although the flashback technique purposely robs the picture of any doubt about the outcome.- Variety
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It has all the ingredients. It's a naughty but nice romp of the hyper-romantic naughty 90s of Paris-in-the-spring, in the Bois, in Maxim's, and in the boudoir. How can it miss?- Variety
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The production is a rich one. The screenplay is well-plotted, peopled with interesting characters, aided by good performances from Francis Matthews as Cushing’s chief assistant and others.- Variety
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Unfortunately, even that mastery is not enough to overcome one major fault, for the plain fact is that the film’s first half is too slow and too long.- Variety
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Both director Terence Fisher as well as the cast have taken a serious approach to the macabre theme that adds up to lotsa tension and suspense.- Variety
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Run Silent, Run Deep is a taut, exciting drama of submarine warfare in the Pacific during the Second World War.- Variety
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Part of the pic's attraction is its lack of hysteria. It keeps resolutely to the facts [from a book by R.J. Minney] and refuses to allow the espionage and torture sequences to go past the bounds of credulity.- Variety
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A courtroom meller played engagingly and building evenly to a surprising and arousing, albeit tricked-up, climax, Witness for the Prosecution has been transferred to the screen (from the Agatha Christie click play) with competence.- Variety
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The Tarnished Angels is a stumbling entry. Characters are mostly colorless, given static reading in drawn-out situations, and story line is lacking in punch.- Variety
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While the subject is well handled and enacted in a series of outstanding characterizations, it seems dated and makes for grim screen fare.- Variety
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Disney organization's flair for taking a homely subject and building a heartwarming film is again aptly demonstrated in this moving story set in 1869 of a Texas frontier family and an old yeller dog. Based on Fred Gipson's novel of same tag, this is a careful blending of fun, laughter, love, adventure and tragedy.- Variety
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A gripping drama, expertly put together and handled with skill in all departments. Its potency stems only partly from the boxoffice draw of William Holden and, to a lesser degree, Alec Guinness. What elevates “Kwai” to the rank of an artistic and financial triumph for producer Sam Spiegel is the engrossing entertainment it purveys, including some scenes which will be listed as among the best of film memorabilia.- Variety
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Under Mark Robson’s direction, every one of the performers delivers a topnotch portrayal.- Variety
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The production carries a contrived plot but under Richard Thorpe's deft direction unfolds smoothly. Director has been wise enough to allow Elvis Presley (in his third starrer) his own style, and build around him.- Variety
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It is frequently an intriguing, provocative motion picture, but director Nunnally Johnson's treatment of the subject matter makes the film neither fish nor foul. Johnson shifts back and forth - striving for comedy at one point and presenting a documentary case history at another.- Variety
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As Chaney, James Cagney has immersed himself so completely in the role that it is difficult to spot any Cagney mannerisms. Jane Greer, as his second wife, is particularly appealing in her devotion to her ‘difficult’ spouse.- Variety
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Aside from the fact that this is an upper-drawer western, 3:10 to Yuma will strike many for its resemblance to High Noon. That the climax fizzles must be laid on doorstep of Halsted Welles, who adapts Elmore Leonard's story quite well until that point.- Variety
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Adding comedy lines, music, color and CinemaScope, Jerry Wald and Leo McCarey turn this remake of the 1939 Love Affair into a winning film that is alternately funny and tenderly sentimental.- Variety
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Under Billy Wilder's alternately sensitive, mirthful and loving-care direction, and with Maurice Chevalier turning in a captivating performance as a private detective specializing in cases of amour, the production holds enchantment and delight in substantial quantity.- Variety
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Peter Cushing gets every inch of drama from the leading role, making almost believable the ambitious urge and diabolical accomplishment.- Variety
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Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg, who teamed to bring forth On the Waterfront, have another provocative and hardhitting entry, based on Schulberg's short story The Arkansas Traveler. It's a devastating commentary on hero-worship and success cults in America.- Variety
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Producer Hal Wallis has taken the historic meeting of Wyatt Earp, a celebrated lawman of the West, his brothers and Doc Holliday, with the Clanton gang in the O.K. Corral of Tombstone, Arizona, and fashioned an absorbing yarn [suggested by an article by George Scullin] in action leading up to the gory gunfight.- Variety
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Perhaps the motivations of each juror are introduced too quickly and are repeated too often before each changes his vote. However, the film leaves a tremendous impact.- Variety
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Director Jack Arnold works up the chills for maximum effect.- Variety
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Alfred Hitchcock draws upon real-life drama for this gripping piece of realism [from the Life magazine story The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero by Maxwell Anderson]. He builds the case of a NY Stork Club musician falsely accused of a series of holdups to a powerful climax, the events providing director a field day in his art of characterization and suspense.- Variety
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Except for moments of humor that are strictly inherent in the character of the principals, Baby Doll plays off against a sleazy, dirty, depressing Southern background. Over it hangs a feeling of decay, expertly nurtured by director Elia Kazan.- Variety
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Tiptop scripting from the Robert Wilder novel, dramatically deft direction by Douglas Sirk and sock performances by the cast give the story development a follow-through.- Variety
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It is also, for the most part, an excellent film which registers strongly on all levels, whether it's in its breathtaking panoramic shots of the dusty Texas plains; the personal, dramatic impact of the story itself, or the resounding message it has to impart.- Variety
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Around the World In 80 Days, is a smasheroo from start to finish.- Variety
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This is a slow-moving picture whose only action is in the dialog itself. Basically a faithful portrait of Van Gogh, Lust for Life is nonetheless unexciting. It misses out in conveying the color and entertainment of the original Irving Stone novel.- Variety
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Taken from Maxwell Anderson's stage play, adapted from William March's novel, the film remains more of the theatre than of the motion picture field. Nonetheless, it is well done within that qualification.- Variety
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Fortified with a strong Cole Porter score, film is a pleasant romp for cast toppers Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Their impact is almost equally consistent. Although Sinatra has the top pop tune opportunities, the Groaner makes his specialties stand up and out on showmanship and delivery, and Kelly impresses as a femme lead.- Variety
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All the ingredients that made Rodgers & Hammerstein's [1951] The King and I a memorable stage experience have been faithfully transferred to the screen. The result is a pictorially exquisite, musically exciting, and dramatically satisfying motion picture.- Variety
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Moby Dick is interesting more often than exciting, faithful to the time and text [of the Herman Melville novel] more than great theatrical entertainment. Essentially it is a chase picture and yet not escaping the sameness and repetitiousness which often dulls the chase formula.- Variety
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Crime in the Streets, in its jump from a TV origin, sets out to be a gutsy melodrama about slum area delinquents and, within the framework of Reginald Rose's highly contrived story, succeeds in making its shock points under Don Siegel's pat directorial handling.- Variety
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This story of a $2 million race track holdup and steps leading up to the robbery, occasionally told in a documentary style which at first tends to be somewhat confusing, soon settles into a tense and suspenseful vein which carries through to an unexpected and ironic windup.- Variety
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With Alfred Hitchcock pulling the suspense strings, The Man Who Knew Too Much is a good thriller.- Variety
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The box office appeal of John Wayne combined with the imprint of John Ford makes The Searchers a contender for the big money stakes. It's a western in the grand scale - handsomely mounted and in the tradition of Shane.- Variety
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Budd Schulberg's vehement novel about the fight racket is given a strong pictorial going-over in The Harder They Fall. It's main-event stuff.- Variety
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Imaginative gadgets galore, plus plenty of suspense and thrills, make the production a top offering in the space travel category. Best of all the gadgets is Robby, the Robot, and he's well-used for some comedy touches.- Variety
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Kurosawa performs a tour-de-force in keeping a dramatic thread throughout and avoiding the mawkish. It is technically excellent with a telling Occidental-type musical score.- Variety
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At all times Shakespeare’s poetry, impeccably spoken by this outstanding cast, heightens the dramatic atmosphere. The production, and notably Roger Furse’s decor, is consistently spectacular. The climactic battle sequences rival the pageantry of Henry V.- Variety
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This is an amusing piece of hokum, being a parody of American gangsterdom interwoven with whimsy and exaggeration that makes it more of a macabre farce. Alec Guinness sinks his personality almost to the level of anonymity.- Variety
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This tense, offbeat piece of science-fiction is occasionally difficult to follow due to the strangeness of its scientific premise. Action nevertheless is increasingly exciting.- Variety
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Although this story of a long-suffering woman who, at 40 or so, finds romance with a man between 10 and 15 years her junior, is hardly designed to ignite prairie fires, scripter Peg Fenwick nevertheless has managed to turn the Edna L. and Harry Lee story into a slightly offbeat yarn with some interesting overtones that accent the social prejudices of a small town.- Variety
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Clinical in its probing of the agonies, this is a gripping, fascinating film, expertly produced and directed and performed with marked conviction by Frank Sinatra as the drug slave.- Variety
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Luis Bunuel has fashioned an absorbing melodramatic psycho pic out of El. Although the story [from the novel Pensiamentos by Mercedes Pinto] borders on the banal, fine direction and acting keep this within bounds, and give a dimension to the harrowing tale of a madman's attempt to love.- Variety
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Here is a fairly exciting, suspenseful and provocative, if also occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth on another delinquency kick.- Variety
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The tunes ring out with undiminished delight. The characters pulsate with spirit. The Agnes De Mille choreography makes the play literally leap.- Variety
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This is a blithe little comedy, produced and directed with affection by Alfred Hitchcock, about a bothersome corpse that just can't stay buried.- Variety
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As well as spoofing television, It's Always Fair Weather also takes on advertising agencies and TV commercials, and what emerges is a delightful musical satire.- Variety
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While a suspense thread is present, director Alfred Hitchcock doesn't emphasize it, letting the yarn play lightly for comedy more than thrills.- Variety
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The rather simple story of a pioneer father, his son and their dream of new lands is the basis for this adventure-drama. The footage is long and often slow, with the really high spots of action rather scattered.- Variety
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James Cagney is simply great as the captain of the ship. William Powell tackles the role of ship’s doctor with an easy assurance that makes it stand out and Jack Lemmon is a big hit as Ensign Pulver.- Variety
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This start for Gregory as producer and Laughton as director is rich in promise but the completed product, bewitching at times, loses sustained drive via too many offbeat touches that have a misty effect.- Variety
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At times proceedings are too consciously cute and stage origin of material [a play by Albert Husson] still clings since virtually all scenes are interiors with characters constantly entering and exiting. However, Michael Curtiz’ directorial pacing and topflight performances from Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov help minimize the few flaws.- Variety
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Though some scenes come off fairly well, Mitchum is poker-faced from start to finish.- Variety
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When the viewing senses begin to dull from the tremendous load of spectacle, the script and Hawks’ direction wisely switch to sex and intrigue.- Variety
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A delight for the juveniles and lots of fun for adults, Lady and the Tramp is the first animated feature in CinemaScope and the wider canvas and extra detail work reportedly meant an additional 30% in negative cost. It was a sound investment.- Variety
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Powerfully somber dramatics have been captured from the pages of John Steinbeck's East of ed en and put on film by Elia Kazan. It is a tour de force for the director's penchant for hard-hitting forays with life.- Variety
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Glenn Ford, Morrow and Poitier are so real in their performances under the probing direction by Brooks that the picture alternatingly has the viewer pleading, indignant and frightened before the conclusion.- Variety
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A very special kind of picture, combining photographic ingenuity, imaginative story telling and fiscal daring.- Variety
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The Last Time I Saw Paris is an engrossing romantic drama that tells a good story with fine performances and an overall honesty of dramatic purpose.- Variety
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Preminger directs with a deft touch, blending the comedy and tragedy easily and building his scenes to some suspenseful heights. He gets fine performances from the cast toppers, notably Dorothy Dandridge, a sultry Carmen whose performance maintains the right hedonistic note throughout.- Variety
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A Star Is Born was a great 1937 moneymaker and it’s an even greater picture in its filmusical transmutation.- Variety
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Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, along with VistaVision, keep the entertainment going in this fancifully staged production, clicking well.- Variety
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Sharpness of the characters, the high-voltage dialog, the cynicism and wit and wisdom of the story, the spectacular combination of the immorally rich and the immorally sycophantic - these add up to a click feature from writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz.- Variety
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In transferring Brigadoon, a click as a [1947] Broadway musical play, to the screen, Metro has medium success. It's a fairly entertaining tunefilm of mixed appeal.- Variety
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Hitchcock confines all of the action to this single setting and draws the nerves to the snapping point in developing the thriller phases of the plot. He is just as skilled in making use of lighter touches in either dialog or situation to relieve the tension when it nears the unbearable. Interest never wavers during the 112 minutes of footage.- Variety
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It is a sensitive treatment of faith told in terms of moving, human drama which packs emotional impact.- Variety
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This is a happy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping country type of musical with all the slickness of a Broadway show. Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul provide the slick, showy production with eight songs, all of which jibe perfectly with the folksy, hillbilly air maintained in the picture.- Variety
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Under Elia Kazan's direction, Marlon Brando puts on a spectacular show, giving a fascinating, multi-faceted performance.- Variety
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The Caine Mutiny is highly recommendable motion picture drama, told on the screen as forcefully as it was in the Herman Wouk best-selling novel. The intelligently adapted screenplay retains all the essence of the novel.- Variety
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This science-fiction shocker has a well-plotted story [by George Worthington Yates, adapted by Russell Hughes], expertly directed and acted in a matter-of-fact style.- Variety
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Though not as funny as Fete, due to a lesser story peg, this one generates a load of yocks, with fine observation of types at a vacation resort.- Variety
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There are a number of basic weaknesses in the setup that keep the picture from being a good suspense show for any but the most gullible. Via the performances and several suspense tricks expected of Hitchcock, the weaknesses are glossed over but not enough to rate the film a cinch winner.- Variety
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Salt of the Earth is a good, highly dramatic and emotion-charged piece of work that tells its story straight. It is, however, a propaganda picture which belongs in union halls rather than theatres.- Variety
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Inspired by an episode when a mob of youths on motorcycles terrorized a Californian town for an entire evening, this feature is long on suspense, brutality and sadism. Marlon Brando contributes another hard-faced 'hero' who never knew love as a boy and is now plainly in need of psychoanalysis.- Variety
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The carefully developed script plus knowing direction by Richard Thorpe give the legendary tale credibility. It’s storybook stuff – and must be accepted as such – but the astute staging results in a walloping package of entertainment for all except, perhaps, the blase.- Variety
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Hondo is an exciting offbeat western. The stereoscopic 3-D cameras and WarnerColor successfully capture the vast natural beauty of Camargo, Mexico, where the picture was filmed on location.- Variety
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Giving such Wild West characters as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok a workout in a tuned-in western doubtless had strong possibilities but Warners comes close to missing the stagecoach. Colorful settings and costumes add the entry some sparkle but the 'book' is lacking in originality and the players simply are uneasy.- Variety
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The lure of the jungle and romance get a sizzling workout in Mogambo and it's a socko package of entertainment, crammed with sexy two-fisted adventure.- Variety
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