Word: portias
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...couple in town had a spat during the night and headed out of their house in opposite directions; the marshal sat with their children until the parents returned the next morning. On the rare occasions when an escaped convict has been in the vicinity, Mrs. Winders and her bloodhound Portia join police from neighboring areas in the chase. Her most serious current problem is an ubiquitous peeping Tom. "They're the hardest to catch," she says. "But I'd like to put some buckshot into...
...Chan Coulter, a retired Army colonel, credits his one-woman force with providing a "very special kind of protection in our town." But soon University Heights, which hired Mrs. Winders in 1935 when she asked for the job, will have to start looking for a new marshal. Winders and Portia are contemplating retirement. "The council," says the grandmother, "thinks I'm getting loo old to chase cars." The council may have a point. At 70, Esther Winders claims to be the oldest working policewoman in the nation...
...with bravura by Marlo Ferguson in a tarnished Carol Channing wig, he--or, as you begin to accept the play's terms, she--is an irrepressible performer, a one-man version of a Hasty Pudding show. The jokes are bad in a great, extravagant way. (One prisoner, dressed as Portia for a Christmas pageant, lamely explains away the gown he is wearing with, "It's from The Merchant of Venice." Queenie's answer: "Well, take it back then." All right, so you had to have been there.) The point is, if you're expecting merely refined sarcasm, this...
...inch or so of suds atop this murky flow of events. Bowen tells the story in a series of sharp, enclosed scenes with irony, dry humor and a terse, elliptical style. She sets pragmatists against emotionalists, opportunists against those who answer only to the hungers of the heart. Like Portia Quayne, the heroine of Bowen's best-known novel. Death of the Heart, Eva leads a life totally unlit by love. She attracts people, but when they reach out for her, they grope in darkness...
...radio soap operas liked to pretend that Portia really faced Life...