Word: prang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...confidently expected a sorry play acted by a cast of second-rate stock-company players, but he was pleasantly surprised. The parts of the small-town liberal editor, Doremus Jessup, of sharp-tongued Lorinda Pike, uncouth, imbecilic Shad LeDue, capitalistic Francis Tasbough, suave, silken Commandant Swan and sanctimonious Parson Prang are filled competently, even played momentarily with flashes of insight. It is no fault of theirs that the audience occasionally laughs in the wrong places; rather it is the fault of the medium, for the use of exaggeration and caricature is at all times, terrifying rather than ridiculous...
Except for Parson Prang, the political characterizations are weak. The none too obvious but nevertheless pertinent implications about the present administration have, of course, been totally disregarded, much to the detriment of the story. And then, too, the dramatic presentation makes overmuch of a buffoon of "Buzz" Windrip...
...Western Senator, Berzelius Windrip, commonly called "Buzz," a bubbling and buoyant individual whose personality and career closely resembled those of the late Huey Long. Windrip ruled unchallenged in his own State, built roads, enlarged the militia until it became his private army. When he got the support of Bishop Prang of Indiana, whose radio addresses reached millions. Windrip won the Democratic nomination for President in 1936. Thereupon Editor Doremus Jessup knew that history of an obnoxious sort was soon to be made...
...Beulah, trouble broke out. Doremus' hired man, "Shad," grew more insolent than he had been, spied on Doremus, became secretary of the League of Forgotten Men, then commander of the local branch of Windrip's private army. Windrip dissolved Congress, arrested protesting Senators, imprisoned his ally, Bishop Prang, had Prang's rebellious supporters shot, ordered his Minute Men to turn machine guns on crowds. When Doremus wrote an editorial criticizing such statesmanship, he was locked up, his son-in-law was killed, his paper taken over by Windrip men. Editor Doremus became a secret agent of those...