"A filmed play like this doesn't offer the sensual enjoyment that movies can offer, but you don't go to it for that; you go for O'Neill's crude, prosaic virtuosity, which is also pure American poetry, and for the kind of cast that rarely gathers for a stage production. [...] Larry, a self-hating alcoholic, is a weak man and a windbag, but Ryan brings so much understanding to Larry's weakness that the play achieves new dimensions. Ryan becomes O'Neill for us; he has O'Neill's famous "tragic handsomeness" and at the end, when Larry is permanently "iced" — that is, stripped of illusion — we can see that this is the author's fantasy of himself [...] Fredric March interprets Harry Hope with so much quiet tenderness that when Harry regains his illusions and we see March's muscles tone up, we don't know whether to smile for the character or the actor."
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Jews from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesFilm critics from the United StatesJournalists from CaliforniaWomen musicians
Original Language: English
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"The Iceman Cometh," pp. 353-354
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael
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Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic best remembered for the reviews she wrote for The New Yorker. Collections of her reviews were later published in book form.
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