Word: muggers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...come-lately to show business, Broadway's limber-faced Danny Kaye was nevertheless an X quantity as a disembodied voice. An album of records by him had been a sellout, but even his most ardent fans thought of him as a wild-eyed, sharp-nosed, mile-a-minute mugger who tore himself apart with frantic pantomime. Last week he proved he could be funny in the dark...
There is one redeeming feature to the whole thing. It is nondescript Lester, huffooning his way across the drab stage with the abandon of a loosed chimpanzee, using all the tricks of the accomplished mugger, stealing every scene, cussing, spitting, pinching, and generally acting as if he enjoyed every minute of his poverty. It seems as though James Barton is almost too good a comedian, for his "heavy' scenes misfire, with the audience waiting in vain for a flow of damns and hells...
...painfully true when Ray Nance, an ordinary trumpet player, a poor violinist, and an unnecessarily heavy-handed showman, is out in front as soloist. It is definitely not required that a violinist assume an agonized, orgiastic expression in order to produce a simple passage; Nance was such a phony mugger that when he trotted out for his last violin solo the crowd laughed before he even began to play. Nance would never have been tolerated in the old Ellington band, and there would have been no room for such ordinary musicians as Skippy Williams and Jimmy Hamilton...
...verb "to mugg" apparently stems from the dank soil of 19th Century prisons, where "mugger" was synonymous with footpad-"one of the wretched horde who haunt the street at midnight to rob drunken men." Its meaning, as given by the American Thesaurus of Slang: robbery with violence. In New York City muggers usually attack from behind if possible, throwing one arm around the victim's neck, while the assistant muggers frisk the victim...
There is one redeeming feature to the whole thing. It is nondescript Jeeter Lester, buffoonish his way across the drab stage with the abandon of a loosed chimpanzee, using all the tricks of the accomplished mugger, stealing every scene, cussing, spitting, pinching and generally acting as if he enjoyed every minute of his poverty. It seems as though James Barton is almost too good a comedian, for his "heavy" scenes misfire, with the audience waiting in vain for a flow of damns or hells...