Word: hokum
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...police, led by Frank Lovejoy, are firm of jaw but slow of wit, and lag far behind the audience in solving the transparent mystery. But no matter. Time makes this hokum endearing. Director Andre de Toth comes up with several chilling images-for instance, the faces of the wax effigies being put to flame and melting into mush-and keeps the action moving briskly along its hopelessly illogical course...
...nightclub act-on view most recently at Manhattan's Copacabana -is a mixture of hipness and hokum, during which he goes through a succession of four costume changes. The gags are mostly spin-offs from Tonight. "I was out Christmas shopping for my boss Johnny Carson today," he says. "It's hard to buy for him because what can you buy for a man whose wives have everything...
...Mexico marshal assigned temporarily to take lessons from the New York City police. Naturally he turns the tables, proving himself Manhattan's fastest gun, lowest tipper, and the lucky stud who stashes his boots under the sofa of the police commissioner's worldly cousin. It is all hokum, of course, but more entertaining than most of the competition...
...once a church, and Brustein has exploited its dark interior to augment the play's supernatural dimension-even to the otiose point of having important speeches delivered from the pulpit. The electronic sound effects that thump and mutter portentously reflect not so much Newness as good, old gothic hokum. But these mechanical excesses hardly detract from a vibrant updating of the quintessential symbol of love 'em and leave 'em. The presentation deserves not to be left in New Haven...