Word: balkans
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State Secret is set in the grim environs of Stepna, the mythical capitol of a mythical Balkan country ruled by the all-powerful mythical dictator Niva. As a brilliant young American doctor, Fairbanks is involved in the complicated machinations of a totalitarian state. He consequently also become involved with a beautiful young music-hall singer, Glynis Johns...
...supporting cast is uniformly competent, with Herbert Lom turning in a superlative bit as a Peter Lorretype Balkan shyster who smuggles Fairbanks out of the country...
...pessimism was misplaced. Ever since the days of another Balkan Queen, Marie of Rumania, storming the sentimental citadel of U.S. republicanism has become a required skill for European monarchs. Americans, denying themselves the luxury of a monarch of their own, usually capitulate to visiting crowned heads without even a faint show of resistance. In addition, 36-year-old Frederika of Greece and her handsome husband, King Paul, have already captured an impressive array of U.S. hostages in their homeland...
When she was a little girl in Philadelphia, Shirley Booth invented a game called "Talking Balkan" that she played on streetcars. Shirley would jump on ahead of her mother and race to the front of the car. When her mother took a seat, Shirley would come dashing back, babbling ecstatically in a homemade, foreign-sounding tongue. The game had everything a fledgling actress could want. There was a captive audience of nice, admiring old ladies ("What an enchanting child!"). There was a touch of mystery ("What language is she speaking?"), a touch of pathos ("Look how sweet...
Died. General Nicholas Plastiras, 70, oldtime revolutionary and war hero, and three times Greece's Premier; of a heart ailment; near Athens. Risen from the ranks, Cavalryman Plastiras served with distinction in the Balkan Wars (1912-13), World War I, the postwar anti-Bolshevist Allied expedition to the Ukraine, and Greece's war against the Turks, who respectfully nicknamed him the "Black Pepper." When Greece was disastrously beaten by Turkey (1922), Plastiras helped oust King Constantine, whose regime was blamed for the defeat. In 1933, Plastiras staged another coup to forestall a Royalist comeback, ruled as dictator...