Word: diamond
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Fearful Crime. The Wilder-Diamond adaptation consists mostly of frequent, unfortunate embellishments. Wilder and Diamond conjure up, for instance, an Oriental cathouse that is never seen but frequently talked about, generally with such references as "I sure could use a little of that sweet and sour right now." They also create a sequence hi which Burns visits Hildy's fiancee (played with popeyed persistence by Susan Sarandon) and passes himself off as Johnson's probation officer. This kicks off a scene of lengthy anxiety about Hildy's fearful (but imaginary) crime, which turns out to be flashing...
...during that early scene or it may be shortly after, when Hildy spits out a bit of Wilder-Diamond dialogue and Carol Burnett goes into a strident impersonation of a cut-rate hooker, that the movie curdles. But the thought occurs very early on that the latest The Front Page is an odd place to find Billy Wilder. The sap and the snap are gone...
...crackled in the fireplace of the White House Red Room as butlers served drinks from silver trays to President Gerald Ford, a handful of aides and his four guests: Historian Daniel Boorstin, Harvard Government Professor James Q. Wilson, Woodrow Wilson Fellow Martin Diamond and Chicago Lawyer John Robson. The group moved to a first floor dining room for a meal of roast beef, mixed vegetables and fruit salad. The scene was more reminiscent of the White House of Thomas Jefferson, who had company at his dinner table nearly every night for leisurely conversation, than that of Richard Nixon, who guarded...
Ford, looking tired but relaxed and reflective, gently steered the conversation to the problems of presidential leadership in an era of pessimism. The scholars picked up the cue. Boorstin told the President that skepticism about political leaders is inherent and healthy in democracy. Diamond noted that the challenge of leadership is to balance skepticism with trust. Wilson observed that the malaise in America had increased since the 1950s particularly because many people felt that the quality of life had not kept pace with technological advance. Ford suggested that perhaps the pendulum had swung too far toward a national "self-destructive...
Arabel's Raven is considerably less intricate. It concerns a large, grumpy bird named Mortimer who takes up residence in a lower-middle-class British household, also inhabited by a small girl named Arabel. Mortimer's unquenchable hope is to find diamonds in the family coal scuttle, but he soon branches into carpet eating, letter spearing and serving as unwilling accessory to a diamond heist conducted by a trained squirrel and a pair of inept gangsters...