Word: peeps
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Grooms is best when some menace is allowed to peep through the bonhomie, just as he is worst when he is most folksy. The Woolworth Building, leaning forward as though to resist some invisible gale, with old Frank Woolworth huddled like a crazed alchemist in its tower and a dragon made of dollar bills (the Spirit of Capitalism -- geddit?) waving its creaking neck from the roof, is quite a creation. But either way, one has the sense of an exaggerated rube's-eye view willfully prolonged. It reminds one that however "elitist" economy and wit may seem, vulgarity soon palls...
...began at the peep show. One of the first movies -- an 1890s record of the belly dancer Fatima's dance -- stoked demands for its suppression. As the American cinema grew from fairground fad to worldwide obsession, it seasoned its content for the broadest tastes: no nudity, no naughty words, no violence. And, until the case of The Miracle in 1952, no constitutional cloak. In that year, ruling on Roberto Rossellini's parable of a peasant woman (Anna Magnani) impregnated by a bearded stranger (Federico Fellini) whom she believes to be St. Joseph, the Supreme Court ruled that films were...
...ornate sofas are shrouded with crumpled, much used sheets: this is a world of ceaseless, unsatisfying copulation. Although the sides of the stage are heaped with the bric-a-brac of elegance -- candelabra, statuary, flowers -- the characters seem more at home with simple louvered screens, behind which they peep and eavesdrop. The dialogue is fittingly brittle and epigrammatic. "When it comes to marriage," a much traveled woman says, "one man is as good as the next; and even the least accommodating is less trouble than a mother...
...result, porn theaters and other sex emporiums -- bookstores, peep shows and strip joints -- have fallen on hard times. Manhattan had 121 such outlets a decade ago. Now there are only 42 in all of New York City, and more are likely to close if the city moves ahead with its Times Square redevelopment. There are now about 350 porn theaters in the U.S., half the number of a decade ago. The remaining theaters have trouble getting new X- rated fare, since many, perhaps most, "dirty" films are now shot on videotape and cannot be projected clearly on theater screens...
...care; he knows you'll soon be laughing with him. Perhaps by the first-act finale. A gigantic Statue of Liberty mock-up stands in center stage holding a candelabrum. Thirty-six Rockettes perform their automated scissors kick. Skyrockets flare on the back scrim. And then Glitter Beau Peep his bad self emerges from the stars-and- stripes Rolls-Royce in a red, white and blue hot- pants outfit and flourishes his baton like the most cunning majorette from Camp Camp...