Word: blandness
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Though far from a prig, Richard Bland (71) is an unbending man. He detests war and all forms of violence, blood sports, meat eating and tobacco, and he once served a term in prison rather than bear arms. Far from holding these convictions against him, the people of the Lancashire mill town of Nelson have twice chosen little (5 ft.) Dickie Bland to be their mayor. "Nelson doesn't like Dickie's principles," said one townsman, "but it does like Dickie." Beyond ordaining vegetarian menus at official luncheons and showing his disgust at puffed clouds of tobacco smoke...
...began Roosevelt. ". . . It would make it easier for me at home if the Soviet government would give something to Poland." Stalin could not have cared less how Roosevelt's popularity rating fared in Buffalo's Sixth Ward. To such arguments the Soviet dictator had a bland counter: "What will the Russians say?" Without the Polish territory he coveted, said Stalin, "I cannot return to Moscow...
...Cuban newspaper reported it last week. Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon "knocked a home run" right after he landed in Havana, the first stop on a four-week good-will tour of the Caribbean and Central America. Instead of sticking to the usual bland official generalities, Nixon wowed his Cuban audience at Havana's military airport by confiding that he greatly admired the prowess of three eminent Cuban athletes: Washington Senators Pitcher Conrado Marrero, Chicago White Sox Outfielder Orestes Minoso and ex-Welterweight Champion Kid Gavilan...
...Angry Men. The play, by Reginald Rose, started out with an old idea (what happens in a jury room) but turned it into a crisp and exciting melodrama. Franchot Tone got a baleful malevolence into his part as a juryman determined on hanging the defendant, while Robert Cummings was bland and believable as the juror who changes everyone's mind. Among the others, Walter Abel, Edward Arnold, John Beal and Paul Hartman played interesting variations on the theme of guilt or innocence...
...also arise when it dawns on a listener that you couldn't possibly have had all the fabulous adventures you've been making up without being utterly fluent in some European tongue. When he confounds you with a sudden French or Italian phrase and demands an accounting for the bland expression on your face, your play is this. "Why, I never had to learn any French. My mist . . . uh . . . a girl did all my interpreting." Needless to say, a discrete look around and a man-to-man tone of voice will enhance the effectiveness of this ploy. If your tormentor...