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Posthumous disclosures about Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) have proceeded like a striptease in reverse. First came the Diaries (published in the U.S. in 1976), a revealing look at Waugh's private, sometimes drunken and usually unflattering thoughts about his contemporaries. Next arrived the Letters (1980), in which the writer appeared in the less scathing demeanor he put on for his correspondents. Now this massive selection of Waugh's journalism displays him fully dressed for his reading public. There are thus no naked surprises in this volume, but it is fascinating all the same: a chronicle both of tumultuous...
...issue-of-the-week parade marches on. Abortion, drunken driving, homosexuality, drug abuse, child pornography, rape, cancer: one by one, TV movies take up a topic, adorn it with stars and promote it as another prime-time breakthrough. As drama, these TV crusades have such familiar faults-too simplistic, too preachy, too ponderously "educational"-that a good one can easily get lost in the shuffle. In the case of The Burning Bed, that would be a shame...
...this time around is wife beating; the story, as usual, is based on a true incident. On March 9, 1977, Francine Hughes, a Michigan housewife, resorted to desperate action against the ex-husband who had beaten her repeatedly over more than a decade. As he lay sleeping in a drunken stupor, she poured gasoline around his bed, lit a match, packed the children into the car, and drove off as the house went up in flames. The TV movie, written by Rose Leiman Goldemberg from a book by Faith McNulty, tells the story of Francine's marriage, mostly...
Edna Spaulding, played with wonderful strength and control by Sally Field, is a sheriff's wife who suddenly finds herself a widow when her husbands is shot by a drunken black youth. Edna, long accustomed to playing the deferential wife, must bow assume the responsibilities of keeping her family together in a decidedly masculine world of bank mortgages and cotton farming...
...picture of the impeccable Jeeves devolving into Wooster or a starched headmistress is, in itself, enough to supply a right humorous air to the scene. The second act is more of this good stuff: a friendly poke at beastly aunts, a discourse on the proper waistcoat, and a drunken tirade shouted by a lovesick newt-fancier at a public school awards ceremony. The whole thing comes to a good old-fashioned musical finish with a bit of tap-dance and "Sonny...