Word: blockings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Falange is the only party on which Franco can depend. Yet it is exactly the party which will strive most vigorously to block any monarchist deal he might hope to offer the ascendant democracies. All this must be bitter drink for Franco, a proud man, who has himself assumed much of the panoply of royalty in Madrid. He appears at public functions surrounded by an entourage of aides and has a lordly way of refusing to see foreign ambassadors in person. Madrid gossips have long whispered that Franco dreams of founding a dynasty of his own. He might, they murmur...
U.S.O. hit on a solution: a one-man U.S. gag factory established in London to turn out material for touring entertainers. The man chosen was serious, curly-haired, stocky Hal Block-who resembles Actor Edward G. Robinson. A University of Chicago graduate (1934), he was a scriptwriter for Burns & Allen and coauthor of Olsen & Johnson's Sons o' Fun. U.S.O. installed Block at BBC, which pays him a fraction of his previous earnings...
...Block's chief job at present-aside from pointing up the patter of visiting entertainers-is doing the script for Yankee Doodle Doo, a radio show starring Vic Oliver, Winston Churchill's son-in-law. The program goes out to U.S. and British troops, hopefully designed to teach them each other's slang, humor, point of view...
...Block has found that the British like old jokes to which they are sentimentally attached, whereas U.S. troops prefer a new twist. The British do not think insults are funny, whereas U.S. boys do. One of the few common denominators that both sides share is a knowledge of Hollywood and its personalities. Block also observes that the lower the humor, the more international...
International politics is a seasonably safe ground for comic amity between nations. Block was the man behind Bob Hope's recent European gagfest and had a circus trying out his best Anglo-American jests. Hilariously successful sample...