Word: madams
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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ORSON WELLES CINEMA I: Madam Rosa...
Despite the vigilant but not unsympathetic eye of Miss Mona (Carlin Glynn), whom no one would presume to call a madam, the girls feel that this house is cozier than home. But a puritan nemesis stalks them: a local TV Savonarola nicknamed "Watchdog" (Clint Allmon) who is bent on inflaming the Bible thumpers and incriminating the pols till they close down the Chicken Ranch...
There are at least two memorable performances in the film--but they come from characters on the periphery. One is Francis Faye's Madam Nell, the whorehouse madam. She delivers a series of deadpan wise-cracks with the dry timing of a George Burns, and this cool sexual sarcasm produces a clever variation on Mae West's old routines. But in the end the bit doesn't mesh with the plot; it is precisely because of her toughness that we fail to be touched her Madame Nell goes crazy after the authorities shut down the brothel. The house's black...
...real Bellocq, Carradine rarely gets a handle on the mysterious photographer-hero. With his sepulchral demeanor, he looks less like an obsessed artist than a constipated undertaker. Sarandon, sputtering like a road-show Tennessee Williams heroine, never creates a credible character. Nor does Singer Frances Faye, playing an ancient madam who does an obligatory mad scene when reformers close down her business...
According to unreliable sources, the first man's first words were, "Madam, I'm Adam." Since then, language has been like that palindrome: the optimists can read its messages forward, the pessimists backward. In 1977 American English gave both groups plenty of opportunity. The air was saturated with recent coinages ("reverse discrimination," "mainstreaming," "ten-four, good buddy"). Some phrases enriched the nation's tongue; many impoverished it with jargon and meaningless terms. For words are like prescription lenses; they obscure what they do not make clear. This year the Washington Star had no trouble finding examples that...