Word: pompousness
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Candor & Confession. In his speech welcoming Democratic delegates to Illinois on the convention's opening day, Adlai Stevenson said nothing to clarify his own status, concentrated on mocking the Republicans who had left Chicago a week and a half before. Said he: "For almost a week, pompous phrases marched over this landscape in search of an idea, and the only idea they found was that the two great decades of progress [under the Democratic Party] were the misbegotten spawn of bungling, corruption, socialism, mismanagement, waste and worse. They captured, tied and dragged that ragged idea in here and furiously...
...Perkins is busying herself around her lumber yard when Gladys Pendleton calls to say that her mother Matilda fell, or was pushed, while arguing about a divorce with her husband, pompous Bank President Augustus Pendleton. Augustus goes off to spend the evening with his gentle lady friend, Widow Amy McKenzie, the woman Matilda wants to name in the divorce suit. The teaser: Will gentle Amy marry pompous Augustus...
Compared to its more pompous sisters, Bennington is still in diapers. It was founded in 1923 by a Congregationalist minister, with the support of a large group of townsmen. Also helping were the president of Radcliffe, Smith, and Columbia. As one of the countless college catalogues claims, "enthusiasm grew by leaps and bounds." This statement is verified by the fact that when Bennington started classes in 1932 during the blackest depths of the depression, fund-raising was a job fit only for blackmailers...
Conrad's enchanted prisoner of the tropics is Willems (Trevor Howard), a weakling fired from his job in Macassar for stealing, who goes to live at a lonely trading post run by pompous Almayer (Robert Morley) and his wife (Wendy Hiller). Willems falls in love-temporarily but passionately-with Aissa, a sinuous, savage native beauty (played by Kerima, a 22-year-old Arab girl) for whom he sells out the secret of the post's channel shipping route. Also on hand: Captain Tom Lingard (Ralph Richardson), man of the sea and lover of justice, who punishes Willems...
...writes about appearance and reality. His characters wear masks of habit that fool even themselves. Then something happens, and the revelation comes. A hard-bitten nurse, busy convoying wounded soldiers, discovers even to her own surprise that she has a warm heart. A young wife, ground down by a pompous and much older husband, gets a clutch on herself-and evens the balance by smashing his false teeth. The title story examines a group of R.A.F. pilots through the critical eyes of an old army officer, who gradually learns that beneath their abruptness and diffidence lies courage at least...