Word: gruff
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Twenty years ago two gifted free-verse _ poets who became prominent at about the same time were widely hailed as among the most original spirits in the emerging group of Midwestern writers. Two more dissimilar talents have seldom been found in the same school. Edgar Lee Masters was a gruff, hardbitten, Kansas-born lawyer whose poems were bitter epitaphs on the wasted lives of a small town. Carl Sandburg, cheerful, intuitive, sentimental, had worked as a porter in a barber shop, sceneshifter in a theatre, truck-handler in a brickyard, a dishwasher, harvest hand, Social-Democratic Party organizer, newspaperman...
...birth of another grandchild, a separation, an accident, a marked improvement in the spiritual development of almost all members of the crowded household as well as a general bettering of their economic situations. Even Harvey's city wife indirectly contributes to the common welfare, since she reminds gruff Tom of an old sweetheart, thus softens him a little without actually leading him into sin. Sometimes Author Thomas, despite her zest for writing about the homely details of farm life, comes perilously close to setting her characters in situations where a showdown would be inevitable-e.g., when...
Speed (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is an incredibly hackneyed story of a gruff mechanic with revolutionary ideas on carburetors who falls in love with a fellow-worker in an automobile factory. She turns out to be the boss's niece, masquerading under a false name to learn the business. Climax is a ridiculous world speed trial on Muroc Dry Lake in which love and the carburetor win out. Adequate acting by James Stewart and Wendy Barrie give Speed its only tinge of interest...
...when the first concert was given. The rejuvenated orchestra has taken care of the rest. Attendance has been some 40% better than in 1929. Next year the orchestra personnel will be increased, the season probably extended. The only one to complain of the good fortune has been the gruff-looking conductor with the famed walrus mustachios. Monteux hates dinner parties, has been obliged to attend more than...
...bits of infancy, and seeing quintuple at that, will be delighted to hear that there is plenty of the Dionne petites frolicking about their luxurious nursery, registering all sorts of emotions to anyone with a sympathetic imagination, and knocking over miniature chairs when told to be little ladies. The gruff brat-baiters, on the other hand, will find plenty of diversion in the career of Jean Hersholt, playing the staunch country doctor...