Word: man
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Which brings us to, or leaves us with, Kevin "I-built-Quincy-Market" White. White, a benevolent-looking, white-haired man who will turn 50 the day of the preliminary election, has commanded the troops in City Hall for the past 12 years. Is White a glutton for punishment? The mayor, his aides whisper in your ear, has led the city through the worst of times (i.e. the civil war to desegrate the city's schools) and now wants to guide his city into the 1980's. White is seeking an unprecedented fourth term in office and, if enough people...
...capital punishment (Why is capital punishment an issue in a municipal election? Because this is Boston), mandatory sentencing and rent control. Sometimes he even sounds like Gov. Edward J. King, promising to cut all government-funded abortions and yelling about improving public safety. But can the voters take this man, who wants to recruit police youth liaison officers "out of the Starsky and Hutch mold," seriously...
...Muslim north: "It depressed me to see the starved, tethered donkeys outside suffering while the fat ones ate, and the thirsty chickens dashing for a chance to peck at our spit." In the river town of Gelhak he records the visual cacophony in Polaroid prose: "We saw a man with a monkey's nose; and a woman whose feet were reversed, her toes pointing back wards. More turbans and tarbooshes now, more Arabs, as well as the eggplant-black Dinkas, and purple Nuer with carved stripes that circled their foreheads under the hairline, and Shilluk with beadlike cicatrices stretching...
...Alda the actor looks like a waiter in Chinatown begging for a big tip--his squinting, ever-genial countenance belies the selfish, insatiable drive that defines his hero, Senator-on-the-make Joe Tynan. The words of the screenplay may fit, but Alda can't take up the Nice Man's Burden: Hawkeye can't play Macbeth...
...intrusive Hollywood morality. But the excellences in character acting balance any such flaws. Melvyn Douglas, a reliable old pro, plays the aging, once powerful Senator Birney, whose friendship Tynan must betray. Alda's best moments come when he is Douglas's foil; Tynan feels contempt for the old man's politics but cannot help sympathizing when Birney lapses into senility and the Cajun tongue of his youth. Rip Torn plays a hilarious cameo as the libidinous buffoon, Sen. Ritner...