Word: blander
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Irwin Shaw, 44, has commuted between France, Switzerland and Italy for the past six years, is now as studiously nonpolitical as he was formerly tumultuously partisan. His current work reflects his present detachment; it is blander than before, as accomplished as ever but less impassioned. But so are the times, and Author Shaw seems to argue between the lines that he still holds up a mirror to life, and cannot put more into his stories than his mirror shows...
...Caesar's reign also closes a TV era in which the comedian was king, and leaves supremacy to a new breed of blander favorites-the Perry Comos, the Lawrence Welks. the Tennessee Ernie Fords (see below). Almost all the comics have surrendered or compromised in the face of TV's terrible challenge of keeping both material and audiences from getting tired. Next fall CBS's Jackie Gleason will take a sabbatical, and NBC's George Gobel will try to salvage his popularity by cutting down his exposure. Such perennials as Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Burns...
With a voice that can be a shy soprano but is more often a belting baritone, Joyce Bryant seems to have trouble relaxing onstage. To her credit, she tries: after a sweltering bout with Porgy, she begins a blander number, e.g., After You've Gone or You Made Me Love You. But before the end of the first chorus, the song seems to take its own head, and her voice mounts until it sobs and gargles on the edge of hysteria. Next moment she is off again on a frenzied version of Tzena, Tzena, Tzena or Runnin' Wild...