Word: helene
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...with his spikes flaring at the shortstop's groin. When baseball stardom eluded Francis, he tried being a husband to Annie -- best kisser in Albany -- and a father to Billy and Peg. That didn't work out either, so he hit the road and fell into the arms of Helen Archer, a singer who became a sod. There was some trouble with the law too: that scab he had killed, and a life on the run that has finally slowed to a stumble. Now Francis is an alcoholic hobo on the sad side of 50. He wanders the Albany streets...
...this one. Not even with Hollywood's premier actor-stars, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, as Francis and Helen. And not even with Kennedy writing the screenplay. He must have known that the novel's sour, allusive poetry -- part James Joyce, part James T. Farrell -- would get lost in translation to the screen. He must have realized that Francis' life is significant not for what he does but for what he dreams and fears. But a movie like this, which concentrates on mundane plot, can only show, not reveal. As directed by Hector Babenco (Pixote, Kiss of the Spider Woman...
Streep is always entertaining to watch, even when, as here, she looks like a debutante holidaying among the homeless. Both she and Helen are, after all, Vassar girls, and she bears herself with the shambling dignity of a gentlewoman trying to maintain moral equilibrium while on the skids. But Streep's role is small. Nicholson must carry the film, and it is no fair burden. In one or two other films, this sexy, daredevil performer has renounced his star quality, tamped his radiance, sat on his capacious charm, as if this were a higher form of acting...
...relative newcomer, Helen Cummings celebrated her fiftieth anniversary at the Coop this fall. Cummings was originally hired for two weeks at the Business School Coop at a time when "you were lucky to get work anywhere." Two weeks have become fifty years and, Cummings says, "Time has slipped away...
Cummings recalls several interesting people she has met while on the job. One of her "greatest pleasures" was selling a typewriter to Helen Keller. "She came in with Annie Sullivan, and she was the most gracious lady in the world," Cummings says. "She typed me a little note on the typewriter as if she could see every word, and I still have...