Word: hoodlums
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...last year, Roe was the last lone operator; four gangsters tried to kidnap him, too. But his luck held. Roe, who habitually packed a pistol, got away, leaving a hoodlum named Leonard ("Fat Lennie") Caifano dead. Roe enjoyed life-he drove a Cadillac, wore $50 neckties, and lived in a flamboyant apartment which boasted a revolving television set and pastel-tinted telephones to match the color scheme of each room...
...Attorney. A trucker, who was hauled into court for calling a cop a bastard, found no sympathy from the bench. Said the judge: "Just because our Ambassador to Mexico used that word, it doesn't make it a good word, and anyone who uses that word is a hoodlum-the ambassador included...
...center itself. There is expressive writing, deft direction, some touching minor characters. But the camera cannot quite decide between an individual photograph and a group picture, a person and a place. Sally creates a sort of Green-Hatted Dream Girl, but her gaudy make-believe never really counterpoints the hoodlum realities of Berlin. And Chris, despite resolute note-taking and soliloquizing, seems much less a camera for events than a mere confidant for Sally. William Prince makes him seem any pleasant young man rather than a talented writer...
...angry young Chicago Negro named Willard Motley made a hit, four years ago, with his first novel, Knock on Any Door. It was the story of a murdering hoodlum, written in hoarse tones of social complaint, clearly implying that the whole mess was really society's fault, not the killer's. Many critics liked it, and later it was made into a movie with Humphrey Bogart...
...power of Greene's book lay chiefly in his detailed character study of Pinkie, a 17-year-old hoodlum personifying pure evil, and in the religious conflict within the simple waitress who loved him. Except for a single refinement of the book's final irony, the movie treats its characters wholly on the surface. The result looks enough like a second-rate U.S. crime melodrama to make the new title seem an accurate label. Brighton Rock loses its soul when young Scarface becomes just another descendant of Chicago's Scarface...