Word: octopus
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...itself could. But even if private construction had not been quicker and cheaper than public building, which it was, the federal government would have been restrained on political grounds. A substantial part of the nation in 1941 felt that federal building meant slum clearance, and nothing more. The federal octopus was requested to keep out of middle priced building...
...Manhattan, the International Boxing Club, which controls fight arenas from coast to coast and is sometimes known as "Octopus Inc.," turned out to be a sport, not a business, just like baseball. U.S. District Court Judge Gregory F. Noonan, using the Supreme Court's recent baseball ruling as a precedent, threw out a federal monopoly case pressed under the antitrust...
...Octopus. In 1950 on Formosa, Chiang Ching-kuo came into his own. He organized the political department of the Ministry of National Defense. He established "political officers" in every echelon down to platoon level and even among the guerrilla forces operating on the mainland. Their mission: to indoctrinate the troops for Nationalist China, against the Communists. Orders issued by unit commanders had to be countersigned by the unit political officers, who got their orders from Chiang Ching-kuo and were responsible only to him. They also functioned as a secret police. (In 1951 a top-ranking general was accused...
...picture fails to achieve much originality, it is not because Terry Moore and the octopus don't try, or because Gilbert Roland and Robert Wagner aren't brave enough to meet an occasional shark. The film's real weakness is a script scarcely different from Hollywood's previous deep sea epics. Father Roland and son Wagner, Greek sponge fishermen off the Florida keys, discuss the dangers of their occupation and the terror the diver feels when approaching the reef. As Roland wistfully points out, a man can forget his fear when once dazzled by the beauty...
Throughout the film's many crises, the cast carries on with feverish emotion, as though the only way to express great feeling is with a shout or a groan. The octopus alone manages to preserve his dignity, and he gets stabbed in the last reel. But despite the success of Wagner's sponge-fishing expedition, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is at best a meagre catch for the audience...