Word: conning
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...They grow out of a lot movies and eventually turn them all into mere incidents in the larger and more absorbing drama of the star career. Consider Eastwood's moralistic killer, whose cold eyes are set off by his incongruously boyish voice and smile, or Reynolds' good-ole-boy con man, shooting from the lip as fast as Eastwood shoots from the hip. The comparison is not with their contemporary peers but with the major figures of the great age of screen heroism, to Coop and Gable, Bogie and Duke, those exemplars of the democratic notion that the seemingly ordinary...
...setting is a tavern near Boston. The time is 1828. The hero is an O'Neill staple, the man of illusions-cum-sorrows, bottle-fed. With the aid of drink, Con Melody (Jason Robards) cultivates a highly colored remembrance of things past-the Gaelic gallant seducing the lovelies of Europe, the fearless cavalry major decorated on a Spanish field of honor by the great Wellington himself. In sorry reality, he is an impoverished tavern keeper too proud to tend bar as his father did in Ireland. Indeed, pride hagrides Con Melody, like the Greek Furies, except that...
...scarlet dragoon's uniform, he preens before a mirror and loftily mouths stanzas from Byron. Playing the highborn gentleman, though fooling no one, Con charges over the countryside on a thoroughbred mare while reducing his daughter to a barroom slavey. He sneers at the Yankees as vulgar traders while owing them money and enjoying none of their trade...
...fiery daughter Sara (Kathryn Walker) has a wealthy young Yankee in tow, and when it comes out that the boy's father wants no truck with the peat-bog Melodys, Con rides swaggeringly forth to avenge such an insult by issuing a dueling challenge. Terribly beaten by the police, Con stumbles home in a state of catatonic silence, all the posturing and pride of him. This time he goes forth only to kill the last emblem of his dream, his blooded mare, his Byronic self...
...steadily harsher penalties from courts and regulatory agencies in recent years. Last week that trend was significantly advanced by Jus tice Department felony indictments against Chicago-based Velsicol Chemical Corp. and six present and former employ ees. The executives, all of whom could face prison terms, are charged with con spiring to conceal from the Environmental Protection Agency the results of tests that showed that two widely used pesticides may cause cancer in humans. The indictment is the first ever sought by the EPA against a company for covering up adverse information about a product...