Word: moli
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French humor prides itself on its elegantly turned irony (Anatole France) and the clean bite of its wit (Voltaire, Molière), but it also has a more modern and less celebrated side: what Parisian slang calls loufoque-zany. The practitioners of this form of Gallic humor consist of a small army of chansonniers, moviemakers, Left Bank beachcombers and cartoonists. The cartoonists have now formed an avant-garde to invade the U.S. cartoon market. Some are funny enough to get through, but most will succeed only if they catch Americans with their advance guards down, their sleeves rolled...
Died. Louis Jouvet, 63, famed French actor, director, producer and manager of Paris' Athénée Theatre; of a heart attack; in Paris. A specialist in character roles from Molière to Giraudoux, he was best known to Americans through his films (Lady Paname, Volpone) until he came to Manhattan last March, when, despite the language barrier, he delighted audiences with his deft portrayal of giggling, grimacing Arnolphe, hero of Molière's L'Ecole des Femmes...
...plot that never quite overcomes its resemblance to boudoir farce. Uriah the Hittite (Kieron Moore), whom David cheats first of his wife and then of his life, may well be the most gullible cuckold in literature; even played straight, the character seems like a fugitive from a Molière comedy...
...Singer Fran Allison, the only other human regularly on his show, he has been swallowed up by the puppet world he made. The world revolves around Kukla, a pinch-faced, sadly wise, sentimental puppet, and Ollie, a one-toothed dragon whose preenings and posturings might have been conceived by Moliére. It is also peopled by such types as Fletcher Rabbit, whose "mother was a suffragette, and who consequently takes a serious, rather cautious point of view and is a bit of a bore"; Beulah Witch, who was arrested for reckless broomstick driving on Hallowe'en; Cecil Bill...
Whiz Kid. Brown-eyed Barbara, by facility with word and thought, has won herself a reputation in several careers. Into her expensive education went samplings from a convent at her native Felixstowe, the Lycée Molière and the Sorbonne, Jugenheim and Oxford (Somerville College), where she took first-class honors in "Modern Greats."* She set her sights on opera, switched to lecturing (in a clear soprano) when she decided that she would never be a topflight singer...