Word: conceit
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That probably is not the way the new RCA rock version of Handel's Messiah came into being-but one wonders. Rarely has so much conceit, commercial cynicism, bad taste, musical ignorance and all-round incompetence been brought together within the grooves of a single LP. Written and arranged by Producer David Axelrod (Electric Prunes), conducted by the jazz world's Cannonball Adderley, the RCA Messiah has something to offend everyone. For lovers of vocal style, there is singing that would not pass muster in the 1950s-parody group Sha-Na-Na. For devotees of pure rock, there...
...would have it seem as if the Broadway production were done solely for the entertainment of fag New Yorkers and the conceit and pocketbook of Tom O'Horgan. Whether they intended to do so, Rice and Webber have composed a work that speaks to modern Christians. Despite the silver shorts and $20,000 robe...
...make his Pirandellian conceit even more elaborate, Mailer has Maidstone introduced by a saucy English television correspondent named Jeanne Cardigan (and played by Lady Jeanne Campbell, Mailer's third wife). Appearing from time to time to interview Norman Kingsley and his colleagues, she finally bares her breasts on a live telecast, smears her face with blood, licks the microphone, and moans: "I love Norman T. Kingsley." Such fantasies seem attributable both to Mailer and the character he is playing. They are intermingled with scenes that Kingsley shot for his movie, that Mailer shot for his, and incidents that happened...
...pursues the forces that eventually undo him, Justin declares that there was nothing wrong with Quixote's vision; the chase animates man, and his windmills just might be giants. But reality eventually intrudes on every vision, and They Might Be Giants is a dismal end for a conceit that may have seemed promising at birth. The pretense cannot mask the film's pusillanimous ideas. They might be giants, but in truth they are not even windmills. Just wind...
...Beerbohm once concocted a curtain line for which there was no play: "I'm leaving for the Thirty Years' War!" Poor Max. He did not live to see his conceit turned to good use. His line could -and should-be attached to The Last Valley like a tin can tied to a jalopy...