Scott's style of acting, characteristic of other film actors of the 1940s—a cool, naturalistic underplay derived from multiple sources—was often deprecated by critics who preferred the more emphatic stage styles of the pre-film era or the later method styles. Typical of the 1940s was Dick McCrone: "Miss Scott, who is an excellent clothes horse, rounds out the principals as Lancaster's moll. Otherwise, she's still the same frozen-face actress she was in "Desert Fury" and a couple of pictures before that." Current film historians critical of Scott either repeat Bob Thomas' image of an ersatz Bacall, Bosley Crowther in describing Scott's acting as wooden, or a pastiche of actresses of the period, as did Pauline Kael.