Word: idealist
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Richard is the boy who wants to right the wrongs of the Social System in a crushing valedictory address, which is interrupted, amid great applause, at the end of a stereotyped preamble. A brilliant, poetic idealist, he gets into trouble with the father of his girl (Cecilia Parker) because he has given her verses by that renegade, Algernon Charles Swinburne. When he believes that she has spurned his love, Richard samples his first kisses and his first drinks in company with a fast-stepping lady from New Haven, who wears flounces, high-laced shoes, low-slung garters...
...condensation. But the spirit of the original has been lost and the characters vitiated beyond recognition. Only Anna and Alexei Karenin retain a spark of life; the others are bloodless lay-figures. Least excusable is the mutilation of Konstantin Levin--in the book a sensitive, passionate, inarticulate, self-contradictory idealist, but reduced in the picture to a formal and awkward lover. Frederick March was no more successful with Vronsky, although the part was loss difficult. Even Stiva, Holly, and Kitty were handled without imagination...
Piecing the tale together from the débris of sloppy obscurantism, childish motivation and antique methods of dramatic narration, reviewers found a fairly simple story: Quin Hanna, "an unscrupulous idealist," goes to a small New England town which for no good reason he decides to convert into a small-bore Utopia, marries a wealthy but vague young woman whom he does not love, gets sick of it, her and himself, is about to decamp when his wife dies. But no matter how frantically the actors called each other harsh names, slapped each other's faces, revealed their inmost...
...Idealist of War. On the afternoon of his appointment as Governor-General, plain John Buchan M. P. was having tea in the House of Commons when the division bell rang and a waiter warned him that he should go in and vote. For the merest instant a flicker of pride played on His Excellency's bloodless lips. "I ceased to be a member of this House," he told the waiter, "at 3 o'clock this afternoon...
Benito for Business. The fireworks being over, the League Council, as it always does, appointed a commission. Chairmanned by Salvador de Madariaga, oldtime Spanish idealist and Leaguophile, the Commissioners were Premier Laval, Captain Eden, Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Josef Beck and Turkish Foreign Minister Dr. Rushtu Aras. With a show of bravado Fascist Aloisi said that "Italy reserves absolute freedom of action!" But Geneva was heavy with rumors that Dictator Mussolini had privately intimated that he was now ready to do business with the Peacemen, if they can and will do business...