Word: maladroitness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...imaginary European kingdom called Whalebone. A resourceful scavenger of story ideas, Charyn says the inspiration for the Isaac trilogy came from night mares of his brother, a homicide detective in the New York police department. Whalebone was provoked by a reading of Emperor Maximilian's brief maladroit reign in mid-19th century Mexico...
...Waterston is the most maladroit Hamlet to appear on a professional stage in the past decade. He bears not the remotest resemblance to a prince. He is like a little boy throwing a nightlong temper tantrum. His twitchy gestures suggest those of a puppet on the strings of a drunken puppeteer. His voice is woefully devoid of resonance. He delivers the Shakespearean line like a squawk box in dire need of a lozenge. Add to this little humor and less thought, and Hamlet the Dane becomes Hamlet the Cipher...
Escoffier he is not. And no one could compare him to the organized Julia Child. But the Galloping Gourmet, who first roistered onto U.S. TV screens in 1969, charmed and instructed large audiences with his intentionally maladroit preparation of elegant food, claret-nipping and well-staged cocky capers. After a three-year sabbatical from television -caused by a near-fatal driving accident-Graham Kerr (rhymes with rare) is back on the tube, this time at a canter. Now, skipping foie gras, fondue and farce, Kerr has a basic, economy-oriented series of five-minute segments called Take Kerr, on view...
...Brooks can be forgiven almost anything. He always furnishes plenty that needs forgiving, but his best scenes are madder, funnier, more inspired than anything being done in movies today, including the rather coddled comedy of Woody Allen. Brooks must also have got tired of people telling him what a maladroit technician he has been, and he has taken some pains to correct that failing here. Young Frankenstein is his best-crafted film so far. It contains uniformly excellent performances, among which Madeline Kahn's delicate but libidinous fiancee ranks high...
Nonetheless, even Giscard's supporters admit that the government has been maladroit in handling the present strike crisis. During early negotiations with the postal workers, Pierre Lelong, Secretary of State for the Postal Service, called the task of sorting mail "an idiot's job." The unions are now insisting that negotiations be carried on by Premier Jacques Chirac, on the ground that Lelong is incompetent. After last week's police attack on the picketers, it appears that both sides were occupying entrenched positions...