Word: martinet
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...life (26 years) sallow, dewy-eyed Mohamed Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, had been anxious to please, an attitude largely conditioned by his autocratic father, the late, tough Reza Shah Pahlevi. Like his ten brothers and sisters, Mohamed Reza grew up in awe and admiration of the domineering old martinet who rose from the soil to root a dynasty in nothing more substantial than the high, dry air of Teheran's political intrigue...
These men come to despise their sergeant (Billy Hartnell) so intensely that they formally charge him with abusing a martinet's privileges. But when the sergeant talks it over with his lieutenant (ex-star Lieut. Col. David Niven), you begin to realize just how much wisdom sometimes lies behind systematically rigid discipline. The sergeant's conclusion: "We haven't got a dud there...
After the meeting the General sets out in his jeep to visit his corps commanders, to detail plans, to check on battle performance. The commanders know that the General is no martinet, but they also know that he can be ruthless in putting the ax to any command if it fails to meet his combat standards (Hodges has sacked several generals and colonels, some of them his close friends...
Socially, he is a man who cannot be missed. A man of exceptionally friendly and attractive personality, he rarely comes into a room without attracting attention. Militarily he is a martinet, a spit-& -polish soldier with the driving energy which is apt to characterize good officers. Administratively, he is Hollywood's dream of a big executive: he keeps two secretaries and three aides run ragged; while his satellites revolve around him, he ticks off his schedule with the inexorability of a clock...
Father Finn attributes his transcendent choral effects to the cajoling rather than the browbeating of his talent. His rehearsals are continuously good-humored. He is a genius at making singers relax. For martinet choirmasters Father Finn has nothing but contempt. Writes he, in his effulgent Hibernian prose: "Sometimes [these conductors] seem content to fabricate their figures in ice, hankering to muse in temperatures below zero, phrasing frozen notations with icicle-batons. From the arctics and antarctics which they explore, they bring a refrigeration that benumbs artistic sensibilities. Many an auditorium is converted into a 'thrilling region of thick-ribbed...