Word: duked
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Duke of Wellington may have believed that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Napoleon was sure that the French General Staff had failed him. Sergei Bondarchuk has another idea. Though the English and French exchanged considerable fire and shed small oceans of blood, they had very little to do with the outcome. The beau stratagem was performed by old General Blücher and his vindictive Prussians. They and they alone are responsible for the outcome in Waterloo, or, as its subtitle might read, History Revised for Anglophobes...
...Peace, Bondarchuk found himself at home with war and inept with peace. In Waterloo, he again directs less than he deploys. Psychological insight is conveyed by closeups of the stars' eyes, interminable crosscuts from the Duke of Wellington to Napoleon Bonaparte and fatuous "voiceover" soliloquies, like Napoleon's: "This Englishman has two qualities that I admire-caution, and above all courage...
...cast members often merge narrative with dialogue so that the two are confusedly inseparable. (They could take lessons from Word, who seemed the only one of the troupe to separate the two voices consistently.) True, there are some pleasantly comic moments-mostly in the second act when the "rapscallions" Duke and Dauphin get to pull-off a few of their own put-ons-as well as one or two true comedians in the hardworking company (the actress who plays the hair-lipped Wilkes girl, in particular), but there also is too much undisciplined scuffling and shuffling about even to allow...
...reason for quitting Duke are manifold. "There is no single reason I left," Fitzsimmons said. "The jock atmosphere had a lot to do with it. Sports are a big thing down in Durham. and academics as opposed to the rest of the student body are grossly underplayed for athletes, which I just couldn't understand...
Fitzsimmons, officially a freshman,- "Since I had been accepted, they treated the Duke year as a leave of absence" -has been practicing with the varsity off-and-on this past season...