Word: benson
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...fridge were enough to sustain Harry. Since his wife's death, he has alienated his daughter, denied himself the grandfatherly pleasures and rejected the no-nonsense companionability of a neighbor lady (Joanne Woodward at her unaffected best). He has been particularly hard on his son Howard (Robby Benson), who lives at home and aspires to be a writer. With all these obvious preconditions, one starts to wonder how long it will take Harry to re-examine his life and try bouncing to the beat of what should be the movie's title song, Try a Little Tenderness...
...film's slowness and predictability are not its major problems. As a director, Newman has set himself two obstacles that prove more stubborn: one is his own powerful presence as an actor; the other is Robby Benson's lack of one. Newman may be pushing 60 in chronological fact but he looks as if he is barely pushing 50' And while it's inspiring to see his famous piercing gaze undimmed by the passing years, his vigor vitiates his attempt to portray a man to whom death has dropped a broad hint, just as it undermined...
...Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, edited by Robert Kimball ∙Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859, Joseph Frank E.B. White: A Biography, Scott Elledge ∙Tales from the Secret Annex, Anne Frank ∙Traveling Light, Bill Barich ∙The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer, Jackson J. Benson...
...success and failure of American novelists is far too fascinating and complex a story to blame on their readers. Fortunately, Benson has been so diligent in gathering papers and anecdota that he escapes from his own simplifications. For there is indeed a special chaos to Steinbeck's life, even by the disorderly standards of the lives of American writers...
...fact, the result-Travels with Charley-was a charming little book. Benson might well have made his strongest case for Steinbeck as a rambling raconteur, or as a superb short-story writer. 77?^ Red Pony and The Leader of the People live on as classics for the loving precision with which they portray a young boy's painful need to grow up and an old man's passion to recall his youth. If only Steinbeck, an innately modest man, had been more modest as a writer, he might not have been destined to whipsaw himself between the pretentious...