Word: kismet
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...moment of baby boomers' cultural powerlessness, during the 1950s, when a big Hollywood musical appeared every few months. It's incredible, in retrospect, that An American in Paris, Royal Wedding, Show Boat, Singin' in the Rain, April in Paris, Calamity Jane, The Band Wagon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Kismet, Oklahoma!, Brigadoon, Guys and Dolls, High Society, Funny Face and The King and I all appeared in movie theaters in a single 2,000-day period...
...with her favors, slow to complain about being too lovely or too little loved. If aloof Edgar at times seemed closer to Charlie than to Candy, that constituted benign neglect, not child abuse. Candice's lucid autobiography, Knock Wood (1984), was no Daddy Dearest. It was a sharing of Kismet's gifts...
...must scrape the bottom of the barrel of credulity to believe that in one short summer or about two hours running time--a verit-able slew of the nasty little problems that life coughs up at us resolve themselves so quaintly. Among the difficulties that late (actually, kismet might be a better word for it dispenses with like some powerful spot remover are an old man's anxiety about aging and death, the long-time antipathy he and his daughter share, the uneasiness of the wife mother who is caught between them, and the generally screwed-up nature...
Holder throws bolts and bolts of gaudy cloth over a production, possibly to hide its flaws. With The Wiz it worked, since the show had a story line that could be playfully transposed to a jazzy urban-ghetto setting. But Kismet was a fable, and fables are too fragile for Holder's broad, jumping, visceral style...
Even the real 1953 Kismet probably could not stand up in 1978. A simple damsel (Melba Moore) with a poetic thief for a father (Ira Hawkins) ascends, through incredible accidents, to become the bride of the king of the realm (Gilbert Price) despite the machinations of the Wazir