Word: patter
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...harbor. Last fall Kalmbach made the mistake of appearing at the 25th anniversary dinner of the Balboa Bay Club. As a director he was included in the testimonials, but when he stood to acknowledge his name, there was a pause of embarrassed silence followed by a timid patter of applause. Says a guest who watched Kalmbach's humiliation: "It was pathetic...
...even to enjoy the movie casually. It lacks the elements that could have given it true drive: a sense of an urban underworld, or of the Depression that sucked so many people into it; an understanding of the con man's pathology that goes beyond surface style and patter; a story that depends not on plot twists but on characters. The movie ends up with a lot of expensive sets and a screenful of blue eyes...
...juking. When you're facing a linebacker you just wiggle your body, watch him go off in one direction and you take off in the other." If all the speed and twisting can be boiled down to one move, it is the "okey-doke." In the jive patter that Simpson sometimes favors, that is the split-second change of direction that makes him unique. "My game is to juke the tough guys," he says. "I put the okeydoke on them, just bounce around and look for daylight. No one is going to get me to put my head...
...Marvin's Hickey has the hype and the patter but only a portion of the necessary bravura. He seems to be wrestling with the vivid memory of Jason Robards in the same role, a performance of such passion that it became definitive. It may be unfair for an actor to carry such a burden, but Marvin does not carry it well. His Hickey is tentative, almost halting...
Wolfman had to launder his routines as his audience grew. Still, his nutty patter, the conversations on the "Wolfman telephone," have remained a steady feature. He loves to talk about them: "If a guy calls me and says, 'I had a fight with my girl friend, what should I do?' I'll say, 'Get naked and run around your bedroom,' or I'll say, 'Stand on your head.' " He also talks about love and life, coming across as quite sincere to many of his young listeners...