Word: delightfully
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Like all vaudeville, Not at the Palace depends for its success on the personality of its spotlit entertainer--in this case, Joe Masiell, a lithe, practiced, crudely handsome Italian (his agent chopped the "o" off the end of his surname) with a contagious delight in performing. On stage for the entire production, he performs all but one of its numbers. Joe Masiell--as he himself emphasizes--has had a checkered career in show business. "It's been a push, a battle, a struggle for a long while," he commented after opening night. "I've been at it since...
...FIVE MONTHS in Winston-Salem confirmed some of my preconceptions--and biases--about the South. But it shattered more. I met tax-revolters and tobacco farmers at the Grange Hall (to their delight, I parked my car and stepped out into a ditch), textile heirs at the Hyatt House and "spirit-filled" Christians at weekend barbecues. I baked Moravian sugar cakes and giggled through a meal in a restaurant that sandwiched its Virginia ham between slices of kosherrye...
...struck up the tune Cotton-Eyed Joe, and the crowd of 1,500 people, mostly well-to-do Texans who had paid $50 each for their bleacher seats, began clapping rhythmically and yelling "whoopee" and "ah ha." When Teng put on a ten-gallon hat, the crowd howled with delight. He took off the hat and waved it cowboy-style over his head. To open the show, Teng and Foreign Minister Huang rode twice around the arena in a stagecoach drawn by two horses. The Vice Premier waved happily to the crowd and returned to his seat to watch cowgirls...
...Characters like Lady Margot Metroland, Mayfair hostess and procuress of Decline and Fall, Mrs. Melrose Ape of Vile Bodies, the American evangelist modeled on Aimee Semple McPherson, Basil Seal, highborn wastrel of Black Mischief and Put Out More Flags, and Lord Copper, publisher of the Beast in Scoop, still delight because there are always new grotesques to fill the shoes of Waugh's caricatures. And his work has more serious undertones: extrapolations of what Waugh called "existing social tendencies" led him to premonitory visions of war during the '20s; his Africa of chaos and farce foreshadowed many follies...
Every Which Way goes in every which direction to no particular avail. It is nearly impossible to sit through. Chase scenes, barroom brawls and barehanded boxing matches follow in dizzying succession, but the movie rarely lurches forward. Director James Fargo (Caravans) seems to delight in disorienting the audience: it is a major chore to figure out who is punching whom, not to mention why. For punctuation, there are running gags. Ruth Gordon pops up, without warning or justification, to do her foul-mouthed-old-lady routine; the Gray Panthers would be well advised to have an injunction slapped...