Word: elwood
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...biggest surprise of all, naturally, is "Harvey" himself. Harvey is the pooka, and the pooka is Harvey-he's the miracle that Elwood P. Dowd found leaning against a lamp post after a big night with the boys, and he quite thoroughly disturbs Elwood's sister, Vita, who thinks, but is not quite positive, that he is ruining her social reputation...
Frank Fay takes a vacation from musical comedy and variety to play Elwood with a quiet, wistful humor that in pure delight. If you've ever wondered whether Fay could do anything well but those wry and funny commentaries on song lyrics, here's your answer. Elwood is a gentle, vague soul who says he tried being smart for forty years and then took a crack at being pleasant, and he advises pleasant. Fay achieves a casual distinction that you would not be likely to expect from a vaudevillian...
...nudging Fay for honors is Josephine Hull, fresh from "Arsenic and Old Lace," and still possessed of a fresh and effervescent enough touch to carry some of "Harvey's" more lagging moments to an agreeable conclusion. Miss Hull is Vita; she loves her brother Elwood but that pooka has been scaring away all her guests. She tries to deposit Elwood in a straight jacket at Chumley's Rest, so she can forget the pooka and climb the social ladder with her niece, Myrtle. Naturally, she too becomes attached to Harvey before the affair is over...
...Speech at Elwood...
...Uncountables. The crowd that moved in on Elwood, Ind. from all the states and towns around to hear his acceptance speech on Aug. 17 was unquestionably the greatest crowd in U.S. political history. It was uncountable; no stadium could have held it; the estimates ranged as high as 500,000 and none less than 200,000.* To that crowd Wendell Willkie made a great, an eloquent-and an unpolitical-speech. It was poorly delivered; his word-slurring, Hoosier-twang delivery was a shock to citizens used to the sophisticated fluency of Mr. Roosevelt's radio voice. But that speech...