Word: often
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that the answer to the query of the title is summarized in two words "Swing it" (in the best metaphysical sense of the term). In answer to these cynics, who will remain nameless at this time, I can only say 1) that they must remember that there is often a thin line between comedy and tragedy, as between life and death, and 2) that they must remember the essentially pragmatic and Calvinistic philosophy underlying the facade presented on the scren. I think that if these skeptics will see the movie in a spirit of educational derivation rather than of entertaining...
...this distinction is not a consistent one, or if it is, the author fails to maintain it as such. Far more often the decisions of 1933 and 1934 appear in the context of the welter of intriguing personalities who fought for them. Schlesinger is at his best in recreating these personalities; he is not at his best in presenting the economic thoughts which may have driven them...
Doctor Rock was probably intended as a tragic figure; he fails of tragic stature partly because Thomas has made him often willfully nasty, less superhuman than inhuman. The scenes with his pretty young paragon of a wife, which were probably supposed to loosen him up, are a total loss, as the young lady has no qualities except loyalty, humility, and a talent for making her husband talk in passionate puerilities...
...moments in the history of the theatre. The scene, by contrast, where Alice wakes up to see the familiar symbols of reality, the beard, the pipe, and the framed diploma from Vienna, is as heartwarming an affirmation as has ever been presented on the stage. Magnificent--a word not often used in these pages--is the only word to describe the number she sings at this point, I'll Crouch on My Couch, which closes the show on a swelling note of hope...
...time when "presidential leadership" or lack of it is a heated topic, Schlesinger's assessment of Roosevelt as an executive is intriguing. On the book's evidence. Roosevelt dodged decisions as long as he could, operated in a wild confusion of often contradictory ends, preferred to create ten new jobs rather than abolish an existing one. All this Schlesinger defends as a manifestation of genius, the triumph of flair over disorder; and in a sense perhaps...