Word: life
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Full Life. By that time the bargains were fast going up in price in the postwar boom. Hilton decided to consolidate his gains and let a biographer, who had been busily trying to keep up with the fast-moving life of Hilton, get out his book under the title The Man Who Bought the Plaza. Two months ago, with 7,500 copies already printed, the title had to be changed to The Man Who Bought the Waldorf. Now, says Hilton solemnly, "I've promised myself not to buy any more hotels until the book comes...
Though each of Hilton's hotels is different from the others, together they form a rich pattern of 20th Century U.S. hotel life. In the U.S., more than any other country, the big hotel has become a city in itself. There, says Hilton, "you could live out a full life without ever going out of doors. They have nightclubs, banquet halls and shopping centers. You can read a book in the library and use the safe deposit vault as a bank. If you get sick, there's a hospital, with a doctor and a nurse. You can park...
This sort of journey-through-society script might have led to a movie that really moved with the erratic spontaneity of street life. But The Bicycle Thief is oddly static. Events move predictably and almost mechanically. Each small experience of the distraught hero is meticulously rounded and forced in sentiment, character coloring and social comment.Even the minor movements of the actors-the boy's tumble on a rainy street, the mother's fingering of her cheek-appear overrehearsed...
...suggest Chaplin's mixture of airy charm and down-to-earth bluntness. But thus far, he seems to be merely a clever craftsman with a great facility for squirting clear drops of sentiment into every shadow, gesture and cobblestone. The Bicycle Thief pictures the seamy side of life with no more reality than the average Hollywood movie shows the shiny side...
...backgrounds in The Lost Weekend, The House on 92nd Street and The Naked City. Janet Leigh is probably the cutest lung abscess case ever to enter a hospital, and Ford, with his well-cut suits and his slave bracelet, gives Bellevue an elegant tone it often lacks in real life...