Word: downbeats
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...want-to-be-lost generation. She is engaged to a handsome home-town boy (Rivermark, La.) who sells insurance and is as safe and sane as the Fourth of July without firecrackers. When he introduces her to a poetry-quoting New Orleans gambler, Randy Blane, Rowdy feels the "dark downbeat witchery" of the man melting her engagement ring...
Classical performances keep Benny fairly occupied nowadays; he solos with symphony orchestras around the country about once every two weeks. But at the drop of a downbeat, Benny still swings back to his first love. "After the concert," he grins, "we may have a little jam session." He dreams, sometimes, of getting the stars of his old band together again: "Of course, there might be a little less hair all around, but would we play as well? Could...
...Mollie's nerves are taut as piano strings. She throws hysterical fits, fluffs her lines on the set. Running off the unpromising dailies (rushes), Mike buries himself in booze and Benzedrine. The movie and the illicit love affair have a sudden downbeat ending. A sculptor lures Mollie off to Mexico and death by pneumonia. Even with this morbid added feature, the sneak preview of Mike's film draws laughs in the wrong places and he knows he has produced a flop, and probably his last picture. "It's a dying town . . . the last days of Pompeii...
...popcorn too: 1) never make a war picture unless it is a comedy (e.g., (Up Front and its sequel, Willie and Joe Back at the Front); 2) play the strength -if fantasy pictures are making money, turn out fantasy pictures until moviegoers are tired of them; 3) avoid "downbeat" pictures-nobody ever bought tickets to watch inmates of a mental institution; 4) adults are grown-up children, and should be entertained as such...
...stood up and blew a shattering blast at the audience. A figure in top hat and cape leaped to the podium and began to orate: " 'Tis not for children, not for gods, this play; for understanding people 'tis designed . . ." Finally, Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos appeared and gave the downbeat, and the perplexed audience settled down to the first U.S. performance of Ferruccio Busoni's "theatrical capriccio," Harlequin...