Word: bleat
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Reacting to an unkind review of his movie Touch of Evil in Britain's New Statesman, corpulent Cinemagician Orson Welles let fly with a frustrated bleat in self-defense. Although he is listed as Touch of Evil's writer and director, wrote Welles, the picture's flaws are not all his: the film appeared after "wholesale re-editing by the executive producer, a process of rehashing in which I was forbidden to participate. Confusion was further confounded by several added scenes which I did not write and was not invited to direct...
...Gabriel Heatter, still broadcasting after 32 years, the now-stilled, intelligent frog croak of Elmer Davis, the cocksureness of Fulton Lewis Jr., the literate wit of Eric Sevareid, the pear-shaped tones of Lowell Thomas. Gone now from radio is Winchell's clattering telegraph key and breathless bleat: too seldom heard is aging (79) H. V. Kaltenborn's clipped assurance. The news comes by short wave and on tape, the newsmen in snazzy ties and boutonnieres (ABC's popular John Cameron Swayze), and even in pairs (NBC's intelligent and informative duet, earnest Chet Huntley...
...like the stuff, but it keeps me goin' "), and it was time for the second performance. Fats slipped on his four-carat diamond ring, sank a horseshoe-shaped diamond stickpin in a rich new tie. From the stage, the whine of an electric guitar and the bleat of a sax vibrated through the walls; the rock 'n' roll picadors were wearing down the audience. As his handlers hovered, Fats stuffed himself into a fresh, shimmering suit, then stepped daintily out of the dressing room and trotted onstage for the kill...
Dame Edith Sitwell has declared that she was so impressed by this royal command that for many years after, when told by a pulmonary physician to "say 99," the best she could bleat...
When the end came, the Lion's roar was reduced to a barely perceptible bleat. Gone was the company's $3,374,000 capital. Gone, too, was $5,600,000 of the government loan. British Lion had suffered heavy losses on such films as Cry, the Beloved Country and Gilbert and Sullivan. Said Korda, echoing the famous last words of many a onetime Hollywood cine-mogul: "They may not have done so well at the box office, but. . . they were good...