Word: cranks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Crank disciples who had bolted down Tolstoy's views on nonviolence, abolition of property, vegetarianism, etc., camped right on the premises. "Khokhlov is still here and getting terribly on one's nerves," daughter Tatiana Tolstoy noted testily. "First, he doesn't eat anything; because he says he has no right to eat potatoes obtained by the labor of others: then he eats dates, and honey in the comb...
...great Irish evil, which all Irishmen fear, is romanticism; Shaw's conversion was real enough, but common sense, sanity, shrewdness, the practical were the Shavian aims. He was neither a visionary nor a crank; but rather, in the manner of Swift-though far more successful in his mission to the English-a negotiator. By eloquent attack, irony, laughter, bounce, by the intrigue of words and a wit that cut everything to ribbons, in a prose so clear, fast and pure that it was like a charmer's music to the snake, Shaw hypnotized England. People became Socialists without...
...Secret Service had to weed out a greater than usual number of crank letters. Their authors were apparently under the impression that it would be easier to reach the presidential eye at Key West than in Washington...
Malaya (MGM) squanders Spencer Tracy, James Stewart and a name-heavy supporting cast in the kind of adventuresome folderol that lesser studios crank out regularly on small, starless budgets. Such high-priced talent probably seemed worth using while the story was still an idea based on an authentic wartime scheme: the smuggling of rubber out of Japanese-held Malaya. But the picture beats the basic idea into pulp fiction...
Bride for Sale (RKO Radio) is a tired old triangle farce in which three veterans crank out the creaking whimsy. As a high-powered tax consultant, Claudette Colbert spends her days poring through income-tax forms looking for a home-loving rich husband. To keep her in his employ, George Brent sneaks into her files some data on wealthy Robert Young, who is in on the conspiracy to discourage her. The drawing room dither that follows shows everyone falling for Claudette, but nobody very happy about it. Claudette, who appears to be slumming in her farce role, allows herself...