Word: plotlessly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
York on their TV set. The plotless show consisted entirely of Goodman's and Jane's comments on the film, of her misinterpretations of the obvious and his exasperated efforts to set her straight. In a typical gag, Ace says, wonderingly: "Imagine the Indians selling Manhattan for $24! And where are the Indians today!" Jane: "Playing baseball for Cleveland." Future shows will have only such subsidiary characters as an eight-year-old all-white West Highland terrier named Blackie and Ace's complaining, cliché-ridden mother-in-law (played by Betty Garde...
That is about all there is to the story. Comic relief and pathos are added by an acidulous grandma, a neurasthenic maiden aunt and an old wartime friend of Frank's (Sterling Holloway). But the real meat of This Happy Breed is in the many plotless little human studies which Coward writes with such relish-Frank's advice to his bridegroom son, delivered in the privacy of the bathroom, just before the wedding; snappish, jagged family quarrels; a touching drunk scene between the two aging ex-soldiers; Ethel's silent, terrible way of absorbing bitter news...
...just literary exercises in devious plot & counterplot; a few are plotless casuals of Jews at home, at work & play; but most of them employ a simple plot to make a simple point-the joy, or sadness, or mystery of living...
...little life into what could have been a plotless horror a la Abbott and Costello, the producers have added murder and mystery to provide a spine for an otherwise invertebrate cinema. When flea trainer Allen is left an inheritance of five chairs, which he sells, and then finds that one of them has a fortune tucked away inside, there begins a routine chase involving the usual fusillade of shots and usual ending . . . Fred with a fistful of greenbacks...
There was plenty of trash in this torrent. But in the good mysteries there was good writing-considerably better than that in most current straight novels. The reading of mysteries and comics was no longer necessarily a sign of low literary taste. Turning away from the turgid, plotless "problem" novels of the 19303, both readers and critics were rediscovering the literary values of good storytelling...