Word: brennan
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...begs to be taken much more seriously. The Maysles followed a group of four door-to-door bible salesman in their journey through New England and Florida. In the breadth of the settings, there is a suggestion of something grand, perhaps a statement about loneliness in America. When Paul Brennan, the protagonist, tells his companions that the bible business must be good in Alaska, one is reminded of the scene in Five Easy Pieces where a hitchhiker proclaims the virtues of cleanliness in Alaska to Jack Nicholson...
Despite this subtle thematic dishonesty, the portrait the Maysles present of Brennan is perhaps the most affecting ever done in documentary film. On the road in New England, he is depressed--sales are down and his increasing anxiety shows in every gesture, the fear that he may never sell another bible. The trip to Florida gives him a second life, as evidenced in his little dance of anticipation in the umpteenth motel room of the week. But Florida is more of the same--agonizingly long sales sessions with reluctant customers that resemble the attempts of a spurned lover to keep...
Retired Air Force Captain Ray Brennan, 61, a tall, graying man who loved to collect seashells, had been having heart trouble for some years. But he was the bookkeeper of American Legion Post #42 in Towanda, Pa., and, as his sister Maize Travis said, "All he lived for was these conventions." So Brennan set off for Philadelphia last month to attend a state Legion convention-an affair traditionally devoted to parading and merrymaking. He came home "tired," his sister recalled, and three days later he had chest pains, a fever and difficulty in breathing. "He didn't want...
That was on July 27, and Brennan was the first. Three days later, in Clearfield, Pa., Legionnaire Frank Aveni, 60, died in much the same way. And so did three other Pennsylvania veterans. On Sunday, Aug. 1, there were six more, ranging in age from 39 to 82, scattered in towns all around the state. All of them had attended the Legion convention that was held in Philadelphia from July 21 to 24, and all had the same signs and symptoms-headaches, chest pains, high fevers and lung congestion...
...least one coal company looked to the courts to reopen its mines. "Industrial anarchy," charged Joseph Brennan, president of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. "Everyone is the victim, but shameful wildcats go on." In fact, only the coal companies and such coal-carrying railroads as the Chessie System and Norfolk and Western have so far been hurt. The fuel's major users-electric utilities, coke plants and steel mills-maintain 23-to 90-day stockpiles, enough to ride out a short strike...