Word: criticizes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Seeing The Brothers Karamazov [Feb. 24] strengthens my long-held suspicion that TIME'S motion picture critic should be banished to some desert island reserved for misguided sophisticates...
...ever heard," exclaimed Playwright Moss Hart, "of theater folk giving a party for a critic?" Last week, nonetheless, Broadway's brightest luminaries took over Sardi's with the sole unprecedented aim of honoring one of the enemy: the New York Times's gentle, erudite Brooks Atkinson, 63, dean of U.S. drama critics. Said Co-Sponsor Paula Strasberg, wife of Actors' Studio Boss Lee Strasberg: "It was a party given with love, to let Brooks know what theater people think...
...lured to the restaurant by his author-wife, Oriana. The "sentimental works," as Variety called it, included a citation from Actors Equity, encomiums from such absent admirers as William Saroyan and Clifford Odets, and a letter in which choleric Irish Playwright Sean O'Casey grew moist-eyed over Critic Atkinson's "splendid defense" of the theater "throughout the times of many great events, alarums, sennets and disputes...
...Level." For Atkinson, Marilyn Monroe arrived on time. Helen Hayes gave the critic a huge silver tray inscribed with the names of all 130 guests, some of whom had not spoken to each other for years. Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz composed a song for the occasion ("A critic has a mother, Just like anybody else"). Mary Martin sang I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy with Composer Richard Rodgers at the piano. Oscar Hammerstein II was master of ceremonies. In their boss's honor, Times drama staffers replated the Sunday theater section for a limited edition...
...fact that, in a career of aisle-sitting that began 33 years ago, Justin Brooks Atkinson has made few acquaintances in the theater for fear of compromising his integrity. (He met Katharine Cornell and Thornton Wilder for the first time at his party.) A demanding but undogmatic critic, Massachusetts-born, Harvard-educated ('17) Atkinson writes his views in pencil in a neat hand on a ruled yellow pad. Against one of journalism's toughest deadlines-he usually has barely an hour to catch an edition after the first-night curtain falls-he sends his polished copy through...