Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1963)

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"The Victors" and "The Cardinal" Both Draw Mixed Notices . . . "America America" Well Received "QUOT6S" What the Newspaper Critics Say About New Films "THE VICTORS" (Columbia) ". . . Mr. Foreman's picture has, too often, an artificial look — a look of romantic fabrication and of having been made in an overheated studio ... I well recognize that Mr. Foreman is trying to do something pointed here***He is obviously trying to remind us of the mockery of sentimentality in war. But the device itself is almost as specious, sentimental and false to the norm of soldier nature and the realities of war. There really is not one good performance — one strong characterization — in the whole film." — CROWTHER, N.Y. Times ". . . "The Victors' is constructed from a series of loosely related episodes, intended to unite an ironic fervor in protest against war. Some of them soar compellingly in emotion and conviction, leaving a memorable experience in their wake. An annoying few fizzle into futility ... A film with moments of grandeur, occasionally jerked jarringly down to earth, the continuity of spirit shattered. The answer to whether to see it is resoundingly YES — but go prepared for tantalizing times of disappointment." — COOK, N.Y. World Telegram & Sun "... A strong picture and an absorbing one . . . Each of the vignettes is designed to convey a feeling of what war does to people, with the various segments ranging in mood from the rowdy to the bitter, from the sentimental to the tragic and frequently ironic . . . Some are arrestingly handled and make a valid point, some are contrived. The film is not without its faults, but its accomplishments are impressive." — PELSWICK, N.Y. JournalAmerican ". . . The action is all-absorbing and is filled with shock . . . One of the most shocking of the war films, and the shock is put there for a certain, planned effect. Although it is one of the best, it comes to us after a succession of films that have been inundating the screen for the past 20 years . . . There are many fine scenes in the film, but little cohesion between them." — CAMERON, N. Y. Daily News ". . . Although a great number of right-thinking people can agree with Foreman in theory, when they face this picture of his, they are apt to feel, obscurely, that something is wrong, that it's dull, that it's leaden, that it fails to inspire, come to a climax or explore in fine, war fashion, and that, in a word, it plods ... It strikes me that this is probably the most accurate film ever made about modern war . . . Carl Foreman deserves enormous amounts of gratitude, especially' since his film probably won't triumph either at box-office or art festival."— WINSTEIN, N. Y. Post ". . . Not one of the great war films, despite its several searing and soul-shattering moments, its scope and interesting structure and its basic thesis . . . There are unforgettable vignettes . . . These episodes are brilliant and clear in their narration, for Carl Foreman has a master's touch as scriptwriter. But his hand falters in this, his first role as director . . . Triteness triumphs over the intrinsic validity of a number of episodes." — CRIST, N. Y. Herald Tribune "AMERICA AMERICA" (Warner Brothers) ". . . Good picture-making . . . The Kazan direction is, as always, dramatic, personally vivid, and quite clear in its narrative line. The dialogue, some of it presumably dubbed, is not always as easy to follow ... It is the work of honesty and integrity, but one you cannot like as much as you would wish." — WINSTEN, N. Y. Post "Elia Kazan has lovingly written and directed his family legendry in his new film, 'America America' ... It may not be Kazan's most polished, but it certainly is his most emotionally volatile and strongly felt achievement." — COOK, New York World Telegram & Sun . . . "A film devoid of sentimentality, of the mawkish reverence too often brought to bear upon the travelers to the promised land. A blend of the beauty and the ugliness that is the fabric of life, honest and compassionate in its gauge of men and of their aspirations, 'America America' is a brilliant and powerful film." — CRIST, N. Y. Herald Tribune "... A minor odyssey that has the major connotations of a rich lyric-epic poem . . . An assault upon the senses that may leave one completely overwhelmed. One may also find one's senses exhausted by the sheer length and bulk of the film ... If Mr. Kazan's pictures weren't so overwhelmingly long and consequently, so often redundant, it would be — what? Even finer than it is."— CROWTHER, N. Y. Times "... A dramatic account of the migration of a young Greek boy from Turkey to the United States in 1896 . . . Pictorially striking and emotionally moving. In his concentration on realism, however, Mr. Kazan frequently lets many of his atmospheric and descriptive passages run too long . . . Stathis Giallelis portrays the central figure with convincing intensity." PELSWICK, N. Y . Journal-American ". . . The producer-director must be faulted on the film's length, since the depressing aspects of the picture make its running time of 2 hours and 54 minutes much, much too long." — CAMERON, N. Y. Daily News "THE CARDINAL" (Columbia) ". . . An expansion of the book into an absorbing picture of a dedicated man . . . The picture will be a subject of controversy on a number of counts, but I'm sure it will appeal strongly to a massive audience, as the story is presented with dramatic vigor." — CAMERON, N. Y. Daily News "... A staggering film saga . . . Pictorially exquisite, intelligently cast, and painstakingly, if not thrillingly directed. This is a big and important movie, and for many, a moving, meaningful one . . . There are those who will arguethat Robert Dozier's script is not all-faithful to Robinson's novel. But, Preminger's appeal to the millions for whom this is the first introduction to 'The Cardinal' is ,i worthy one ... A storied extravaganza well worth seeing — for many reasons."—THIRFR, N. Y. Post ". . . Otto Preminger sets his sights on the wrong cardinal in his new film . . . John Huston who is one of this country's top film directors arrests and fascinates me . . . The young priest, played by Tom Tryon, is no more than a callow cliche, a stick around which several fictions of a melodramatic nature are draped. He is in the Bing Crosby priest tradition, but without Father Bing's ease and charm, and the things he has to do in the picture are, in the most distasteful sense, sheer Hollywood ... As colorless as is the hero, that colorful is the film, Mr. Preminger has filled it with bright details and spectacular ceremonials . . . Even the melodrama is perfunctory and weak."— CROWTHER, N. Y. Times "... A colorful, dramatic and spectacular three-hour movie ... A compound of many things, not always cohesive, but in most respects a fine, worthwhile and often stirring entertainment . . . Like most Preminger pictures, the film is not an inspired one, but it is a spectacular and generally fine entertainment." — ZUNSER, Cue Magazine ". . . The struggle of an individual's faith, the force that can be at once elusive and thunderous, is a ravaging, awesome and inspiring theme by turn in "The Cardinal' . . . Preminger's enormous supporting cast is extraordinary in its uniform excellence . . . The magnificence of its great moments make one unduly intolerant of its much fewer and less important moments of comparative failure." — COOK, N. Y. World Telegram & Sun "... A soap opera that cloaks its banality, tastelessness and pretension in topicality and religiosity . . . The cheapness of plot result in a melange of meandering melodrama, mouthed pieties and pretentious irrelevancy. For all its pomp and circumstances, 'The Cardinal' serves only to demonstrate the length (175 uninterrupted minutes) to which cynicism can go." — CRIST, N. Y. Herald Tribune "THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA" (Buena Vista) ". . . The young ones likely will have a little difficulty interpreting the dialect, but once they do, they'll take the yarn to their hearts." — THIRER, N. Y. Post ". . . An entrancing rarity in today's exploitation of naked passions and peephole exposure. With fair> tales so hard to come by, this one is a boon to those in search of family fare for the holidays."— MASTERS, N. Y. Daily News ". . . While it does have a certain charm, and a good deal of the Disney stamp about it, this live-action entry tends to sag noticeably after the first few scenes and does not pick up until the final segments . . . The color work and the sets are just fine, and there are some arresting scenes along the way, but unless we miss our guess, this talkv tabby tale is too tame for the tots. "— SALMAGGI, N. Y. Herald Tribune ". . . It's a nice one, but it is far from topdrawer Disney. This sentimental and extremely genteel little movie seems best suited for small girls ' — THOMPSON, ,\\ V. Times Film BULLETIN December 23, 1943 Page 15