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Bookmark this pageThey Knew What They Wanted (1940)
Director: Garson Kanin
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
More concerned with selfless charity than the title might suggest, this astringent social comedy (the third screen adaptation of Sidney Howard's play) sets an Italian grape-farmer to woo his San Franciscan mail-order bride, and embodies its implicit racial tensions in the opposed acting styles of the central characters: ugly Laughton, unabashedly running the gamut of racial stereotypes (virility-conscious, volatile, forgiving), against the effortless acting of WASP pin-up Carole Lombard. His tolerance eventually conquers her more venal qualities, but the ending is left peculiarly open - presumably by a studio wary of the star system and anxious about the implications of miscegenation. CPea.Author: CPea
User reviews of this film
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- donna fortenberry said...
- Posted on Mar 10 2008 18:10 I live in the Napa Valley. My grandfather was a guard at this movie. I have wonderful actual pi9ctures taken of the movie set at the location. I understand caro9l lumbard was a real character.
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Cast & crew
Director: Garson Kanin
Producer: Erich Pommer
Cast: Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard, William Gargan, Harry Carey, Frank Fay, Karl Malden full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 96 mins
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