The art of the shaggy-dog story is largely lost on me, as I find such stories to be too much of a leg-pull. That's why I haven't become a fan of the current leading practitioners of this sort of storytelling, the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson.
Here we have Ronald Colman indulging in same in his adaptation of a very old play (1914 to be exact) by the famous fantasy author Lord Dunsany, presented as an episode of Four Star Playhouse. Dressed in white tie garb, Colman is suitably droll and polished as the British gentleman who had a row with his lady friend and apparently stormed out of her flat, only to find himself on the doorstep with his silk hat left behind.
What follows is a comedy of manners, clever but so old-fashioned as to be almost unwatchable. The viewer back in 1952 would be hard-pressed to enjoy such hoary material, but adding another 70-plus years to watch it today is way too much.
The all-male cast acquit their roles quite well, but when the final line of dialogue makes the infinitesimally small point of it all, one cannot help but feel cheated -the general result of a shaggy-dog tale.
Here we have Ronald Colman indulging in same in his adaptation of a very old play (1914 to be exact) by the famous fantasy author Lord Dunsany, presented as an episode of Four Star Playhouse. Dressed in white tie garb, Colman is suitably droll and polished as the British gentleman who had a row with his lady friend and apparently stormed out of her flat, only to find himself on the doorstep with his silk hat left behind.
What follows is a comedy of manners, clever but so old-fashioned as to be almost unwatchable. The viewer back in 1952 would be hard-pressed to enjoy such hoary material, but adding another 70-plus years to watch it today is way too much.
The all-male cast acquit their roles quite well, but when the final line of dialogue makes the infinitesimally small point of it all, one cannot help but feel cheated -the general result of a shaggy-dog tale.