Word: nell
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Oscar Wilde said it was impossible for a sensitive person to read of the death of Little Nell without laughing. Tennes see Williams provokes the same irreverence with his cloying presentation of little Heavenly's fate in Sweet Bird of Youth. Heavenly has had her "youth" cut out, leaving her "to rattle like a dried-up vine where the gulf wind blows." Bluntly put, she underwent a hysterectomy at age 15 after getting the clap from her lover, Superstud Chance Wayne, just before he skipped town to pursue a gigolo's career. Now, years later, Chance returns...
...demise of Little Nell, The Old Curiosity Shop contains perhaps the most famous deathbed scene in English literature. A sentimental extravaganza, it has aroused critical scorn and the common reader's lachrymose appreciation for well over a century. The dishonesty and ineptitude of this wretched musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel can be measured by the fact that most of the children at a recent screening did not realize Nell had died. So hastily did writer, director and actor rush past this inconvenience that the kids believed she was literally going away on a long journey...
...journey to anywhere other than a theater full of restless children. The novel's intricate plot is-paradoxically-simplified into near incomprehensibility. Its rich characterizations are reduced to banality. Anthony Newley, who also composed the film's stupefying score, plays Quilp, a scheming moneylender whose machinations reduce Nell (Sarah Jane Varley) and her grandfather to begging. Newley works himself into a great lather turning Quilp's villainy into a parody of evil so broad that the most innocent child could not possibly be scared by the funny man. Of course, once menace is removed, so is drama...
...Kearns, once she wins Corporation approval, she will achieve golden stature at Harvard. Even after Banfield left a tenured chair for a higher-paying post at Penn, the department welcomed him back without delay when he wanted to return. As one professor said, "If God takes one trip into nell, he's no less holy when he returns; he is still God, right...
Everyone in Harvard's starting nine collected at least one hit, and pinch hitter Mike Lynch threw in a home run with the strong breeze in the seventh off Jim Nell Ed Durso, Leigh Hogan, Joe Sciolis, Barry Cronin and Dan Williams each picked up a pair of hits and Durso. Williams and Lunch led in RBIs with three each...