Word: fad
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Following the present fad of humorizing homicide (Arsenic and Old Lace, Mr. and Mrs. North), Topper Returns puts the emphasis on nonsense. Some of it is just tiresome repetition of one of the cinema's pet tricks-an invisible person startling the other characters by smoking a cigaret, rowing a boat, opening a door. Some is fair comedy-Roland Young's befuddled resignation to a world of phantoms and foul play; the friendly insolence of Eddie Anderson (Radio Comic Jack Benny's radio butler, Rochester Van Jones). All of it is hokum, tried & true...
Since Snooperman strikes in unexpected places and without warning, officials fear no precautions can stop him. It is likely that his operations will become as widespread as the fish-swallowing fad of two years...
...companion piece at the Met is "Murder Over New York," in which a new Charlie Chan tangles with a sabotage gang. The new Charlie runs as strongly to proverbs as did his predecessor, Warner Oland, but the late, unlamented fad of "Confucius Say's" has removed most of the punch from Oriental witticisms...
Smooth numbers show no spurts of popularity with numbers as old as "Stardust" consistently being purchased today. Hot jazz tends to be less definite with tunes changing position almost every day as a fad as boogey-woogey or songs like "He's My Uncle" grasp undergraduate imaginations...
...modern tubular furniture was born. Its birthplace was the Bauhaus, famed German school of architecture and design which Nazis later turned into a domestic science school for girls. It had a bony infancy. Fad-hungry interior decorators pounced on its chromium steel chairs and glass-topped tables. But many a buyer found it short on fun, however long on function. Trouble was-and still is-that metal furniture was cold in surface and line, clammy or hot according to the weather...