Pauline Kael
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The Gay Divorce (1934)"The plot is trivial French farce (about mistaken identities), but the dances are among the wittiest and the most lyrical expressions of American romanticism on the screen."
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The Major and the Minor (1942)"The farce situations are pushed too broadly, and have a sanctimonious patriotic veneer, but this first American film directed by Billy Wilder was a box-office hit."
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Charley Varrick (1973)"It's noisy and brutal, with sentimental flourishes."
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Magnum Force (1973)"Eastwood's gun power makes him the hero of a totally nihilistic dream world. Ted Post's direction is mediocre; the script by John Milius and Michael Cimino is cheaply effective."
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The Enforcer (1976)"Directed by James Fargo, this third in the series doesn't have the savvy to be as sadistic as its predecessors; it's just limp."
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The Wild One (1953)"This clumsy, naive film was banned and argued about in so many countries that it developed a near-legendary status."
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The Naked City (1948)"The drab script is by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald; the film is visually impressive only."
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Shanghai Express (1932)"Irresistibly enjoyable."
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Desire (1936)"This is a polished light comedy in the 'continental' style -- a sophisticated romantic trifle, with Dietrich more chic and modern than in her von Sternberg pictures."
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Brigadoon (1954)"Probably the material was too precious and fake-lyrical to have worked in natural surroundings, either, but the way it has been done it's hopelessly stagey."
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Up in Smoke (1978)"Fairly consistently funny."
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The Letter (1940)"Davis gives what is very likely the best study of female sexual hypocrisy in film history."
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Captain Blood (1935)"The 25-year-old Errol Flynn has the smile and dash to shout "All right my hearties, follow me!" as he leaps from his pirate ship to an enemy vessel."
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The Star (1952)"Very bad...Davis throws her weight around but comes through in only a few scenes."
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The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)"The play was built on topical jokes and a series of vaudeville turns, and in this version the jokes are flat and the turns seemed forced and not very funny."
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Don't Bother to Knock (1952)"Marilyn Monroe as a psychotic babysitter. She wasn't yet a box-office star, but her unformed--almost blobby--quality is very creepy, and she dominated this melodrama. In other respects, it's standard"
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For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)"The whole thing became amorphous and confused. Paramount did rather better by the romance than the politics; Ingrid Bergman is lovely and affecting as Maria."
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The Hospital (1971)"The picture strains for seriousness now and then, but even when it makes a fool of itself it's still funny."
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Looker (1981)"This picture seems ingenious at the start, but Crichton can't write people, and he directs like a technocrat. This is the emptiest of his pictures to date."
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