Word: gruffness
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...plot is self-consciously biblical (Steinbeck gives Old Testament names to almost every one of his characters), and it is peopled with stereotypes (the gruff-but-kindly sheriff the shrewd-but-kindly businessman, and even the wicked-and-abandoned-but-kindly prostitute. The structure is as simple and as unenticing: hostile, alienated, confused James Dean battles a pacifist, puritanical brother for the blessing of the patriarchal father (Raymond Massey) and the affections of the brother's girl (Julie Harris). It's a wonder the film has any merit...
...Alida Rouffe as Fanny's mother. These three hams sport around the screen, indulging in every kind of histrionics: uproarious and tragic by turn, they are spellbinding and immensely warm. But Raimu best of all explores the depths of Cesar. Pagnol and the actor join hands to create a gruff, overbearing, and thoroughly vulnerable character...
...against each other in the fight have much in common. Sam Rayburn and Howard Smith both have the patina of age-Rayburn is 79, Smith 78-and the special dignity that accrues to old men who have long exercised power in causes greater than their own ambitions. Both are gruff on the surface, kind underneath. They were country boys, raised on farms, and they still, whenever they can get out of Washington, instinctively head for rustic serenity-the Rayburn cattle ranch near Bonham, Texas or the Smith dairy farm near Broad Run, Va. They grew up, pinched by poverty...
...minutes in his plane before the welcoming committee arrived. And then there was added bustle: Lady Bird had not been expected (there are only six bedrooms in the Kennedy house, and present or invited - besides Jack - were Jackie, the new baby, Daughter Caroline, and Joe and Rose Kennedy). Next, gruff old Sam Rayburn, the "Speakah," as the Kennedys called him, flew in from Bonham, Texas in the Kennedy family plane...
...when Dillon and Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson flew to Bonn four weeks ago to demand that West Germany pay a bigger part of the Western defense bill, Dillon made it plain that he was out of sympathy with Anderson's gruff demands-a fact that may return to plague him as he takes Anderson...