Word: aloofness
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...says Jupiter, "catch your flies with sugar." So Poindexter suppresses his natural reactions to various people, fixes a blank grin of confidence on his face, and composes adulatory remarks to smother everyone with. He gets what he wants from others by feigning interest in their problems and remaining inwardly aloof and calculating. The film teaches that in this way we can all "cash in at the bank of human relations and win sound dividends...
...scientist, Dr. Rostand naturally holds aloof from moral implications-but as a Frenchman, he is sure that, once parthenogenesis is possible, some women will want to try it. And that really scares him: "It is thus inevitable that a new kind of human being (according to our present knowledge they will all be girls) -will appear in society, and will be aware of their extraordinary origin . . . Realization of the fact that the male has ceased to be necessary for propagation will not fail to exercise a profound effect on the relations between man and woman...
Social Position: Managed to make her mark in the circles in which she wandered, always a little frail and aloof, making herself liked by the people she wanted to be liked by, and often unpopular with the rest. Friend of writers and critics like Cyril (Enemies of Promise) Connolly and Peter Quennell, able to talk to them in their own jargon, yet without convincing anyone of her profundity. As flip, smartly turned out professional journalist, got to know Orson Welles, Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton (who lent her a cottage on his Wiltshire grounds). Although needing no introduction to high society...
...Italian. The Greeks still resent Italy's jackal invasion of their land in 1940; the sturdy Turks just do not admire Italian soldiering. Britain's Mediterranean fleet, under the command of Vice Admiral Earl Mountbatten, proved equally stuffy about taking orders from Carney himself. It remained proudly aloof from the whole European command setup...
...Aloof and austere at 82, Artist Yeats has lived alone in Dublin since his wife's death in 1947. An old man, and a Protestant in a Catholic land, he has few close friends now. Dublin knows him best as a lean, stooped figure in a navy blue jacket, cut sea-captain style, and black string tie, who is sometimes to be seen rambling through the city...