Word: perelman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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LISTEN TO THE MOCKING BIRD (153 pp.) -S. J. Perelman-Simon & Schuster...
Times and prices have changed since the twenties, but the Secretary, Sid Perelman, goes on recording with the same sharp pencil. Listen to the Mocking Bird is the latest collection of his bits and skits in The New Yorker...
Fortified by his experience with the debating society, Sid Perelman has become a kind of secretary of society in general-the kind who doodles in the minutes book, makes faces at the principal speaker, and sneaks out in the middle of the meeting. Of late years, Perelman has done little more than sift the ashes of his satire (at considerably more than 30? an hour). Listen to the Mocking Bird contains a heap of clinkers, but enough live coals (Mortar and Pestle, and some book reviews) to keep Perelmaniacs hopping...
...Touch of Venus (Universal-International) is a free movie translation of the sprightly Broadway musical written by Ogden Nash and S. J. Perelman* (TIME, Oct. 18, 1943). When a pretty statue (Ava Gardner) is imported into a department store as a publicity stunt, a kiss from a shy window decorator (Robert Walker) melts the cold marble into ardent flesh. The living Venus has arms and some interesting ideas about using them. Her timid swain is mainly interested in 1) persuading her to go back to work as an objet d'art, and 2) placating his landlady, his girl...
...Farewell. The travelers moved on via gay Shanghai (where, after celebrating, Perelman next day could swallow nothing but "a little clear broth made of Angostura, lemon peel, and bourbon"), the Malay States, and Ceylon. "The last we saw of India . . . was a wizened beggar signaling us frantically for baksheesh. When none was forthcoming, he threw aside his servile manner and, bounding beside our porthole, dynamically thumbed his nose at us until we outdistanced him. It was a touching, and somehow an apt, symbol of the amity between our two great nations...