Word: lowdownness
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Dolls (music & lyrics by Frank Loesser; book by Jo Swerling & Abe Burrows; produced by Feuer & Martin) whizzes through the whole first act hardly once having to stop for a light. If the second act slows thing's up a bit, Guys and Dolls emerges a thoroughly good, lively, lowdown musical. Using fleece-lined tough material of Damon Runyon's, it takes a full-in-the-face but indulgent view of Broadway's cop-fleeing dice players and their dolls. What results, if not always authentic, is raffish and picturesque, and though it seems ground out here & there...
...remains unsurpassed in putting over a song (and a show). No lungs can send forth more compelling sounds, no lips can enunciate words more clearly. She functions with the precision of a machine and the animation of a cheer leader, and is as American-and as lowdown-as chewing gum. Beyond that is her showmanship: even when her material lays an egg, she makes it seem a golden...
This time, in a highly topical spoof of a lady ambassador to "the Grand Duchy of Lichtenburg," she plays one of those high-up roles made to order for her lowdown ways. She observes protocol with a pratfall, practices diplomacy by outright propositioning. When she gets fired and can no longer be called Madam, a grateful Lichtenburg hangs a cross round her neck that entitles her to be known as a Dame. For romance she has Paul Lukas, a distinguished actor who manages to seem so while having no opportunity to act; and for assaulting the rafters, there are such...
Admitted to a Santa Monica, Calif, hospital for a minor operation, Japan's Shirley ("The Grable of the Orient") Yamaguchi, 24, who had come to Hollywood to learn how to make love, American style, gave the lowdown on love in Japan: "Since the G.I.s came to Japan they have introduced many new customs such as to kiss and smooch and hold each other's neck...
...Metropolitan Opera's pretty Coloratura Mimi Benzell, 26, caused a few lowbrow eyebrows to rise when, in a Hollywood nightclub, she unexpectedly gave the customers some lowdown blues and a couple of ladylike bumps. Said she: "I'm making a lot of people like opera that never could stand it before...