Word: claptrap
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...friend," sighs Scottie, "but when you die, you lose all your friends." There's more in that than just a well-turned phrase. A few lines don't work, and the play could use some trimming before it settles down in New York. One rude piece of psychological claptrap ought to be immediately excised: one of those Death of a Salesman-type closet skeletons, involving the time when little Jud woke up and saw Daddy making love to a woman who wasn't Mommy. Like the self-indulgent closing scene, Slade doesn't need this gimmick--he has done...
...opening scene of Mr. Klein establishes the unforgettable obscenity of this horror. What is incredible is that the remainder of the film, which won prizes in France, sleazily exploits the viewer's dread and revulsion to keep in motion the stage machinery of a claptrap thriller...
...author has written elsewhere, especially in The Message in the Bottle (1975), a collection of essays on the oddities of language and mankind. Because Percy and Lancelot share some opinions, there will inevitably be those who assume that they agree on everything. And since Lancelot utters enough reactionary claptrap to offend everyone, Percy is likely to get a lot of angry mail, particularly from women. Says Lancelot: "What the poor dears discovered is the monstrous truth lying at the very center of life: that their happiness and the meaning of life itself is to be assaulted...
...Claptrap...
...Senate Watergate Committee. And as to her husband's wrongdoings, she admits he committed some crimes, but, as she repeats ad nauseum, it was out of loyalty to Nixon; besides, he made a clean breast of it in the end. All of this is nothing more than conservative claptrap. Anytime she can avoid analysis or explanation, she does...