Word: patter
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Patter & Pace. In the brief six weeks of its polished existence, the Revue has climbed to a 50.6 Hooperating (bettered only by TV's two top attractions, Milton Berle and Arthur Godfrey). Last week, it earned the most solid accolade of all: its sponsor, the Admiral Corp. (radios, television sets, refrigerators), picked up the option for another six months. It was no small tab. The Revue is one of the costliest things of its kind ($25,000 a week...
Ceresol and his assistant planned to spend a week studying "the new dignity of modern gambling"-and Nevada's odds. With a movie camera and a tape recorder, they took down the patter and actions around dice tables, hoped to use it to teach Monte Carlo's croupiers to talk and act like those in Nevada. Ceresol had his doubts that fast and reckless craps would ever appeal to the dignified European gambler. For that matter, Monte Carlo's rules would not be too appealing to Americans. Said Ceresol: "We will take back your game...
...spiels, which are the backbone of a prosperous revue, break the back of this one. The least trying sketches garner what laughs they get not through witty comments but through waggish props. And Co-Star Bert Wheeler (Rio Rita), chatting before the curtain, is seldom much fun. His patter droops...
...result, several talented people have a lot of trouble proving that they are. Handsome Crooner Carol Bruce can only be huskily banal; Nancy Walker is amusingly tough at times, but in general the going is tougher. Amid so much theatrical wet wash, only Hank Ladd's slow easy patter seems properly laundered...
Drugs like aspirin raise the "pain threshold"-i.e., the point where sensations, often pleasant ones, ring the alarm of pain. An affectionate pat becomes a painful slap, for instance, if the patter pats hard enough. A person who has been