Word: raffish
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...called up by the Gare du Nord-bustling, clamorous, boisterous. This coarsens a play whose slightness should be equaled by its lightness, whose charm lies in the contrast between its manners and its morals. Such gentility may make the play seem more immoral, but without it Gigi is merely raffish, and less entertaining than it should be. Only such a tittle jewel of a scene as the scene of the jewels comes off completely. Otherwise, Gigi shimmers most while its scenes are being shifted, when against evocatively Parisian curtains it plays gay, rakish period tunes...
Somewhat to their own surprise, the sportwriters were giving full credit last week to Manager Leo Durocher. As early as spring training they had noticed a big difference in Lippy Leo. The onetime raffish rowdy who baited umpires, attacked fans, who was kicked out of baseball for a year, and who snarled the classic line, "Nice guys finish last," suddenly began acting like a politician at a picnic. Instead of bawling out his players in four-letter Anglo-Saxon, Durocher began calling them "my boys." Even in the first dismal weeks of the season, he worked patiently with his stumbling...
Unlike many producers who read scripts until they find one they like, Feuer & Martin conceived the idea for the Bolger show (a musical version of Charley's Aunt), built it from the ground up. Inspired by the late Damon Runyon's raffish fables, they did the same with Guys and Dolls. Except for Pat Rooney Sr., who last appeared in a Manhattan playhouse in 1918, none of the new show's principals has ever played in a Broadway musical before. But Guys and Dolls, three months old, will recoup its $177,000 investment before...
Uncle Adrian gives the brooding boy new things to think about; he teaches Philip the mysteries of baking, tells him the family stories, and treats him with warm and raffish camaraderie. In the end, a subdued Alec turns up to make amends to his son, and Philip accepts him with the simple, sufficient statement: "You're my father...
Ever since North Carolina-born Bank Teller William Sydney Porter fled to Honduras in 1896 to duck an embezzlement charge in the U.S., Central America has been a raffish sanctuary for some of North America's rarest wild birds. Some went there to evade U.S. justice, some were shoestring promoters brewing or forgetting get-rich-quick schemes, and some were merely fugitives from an over-mechanized world, attracted by such tall tropic yarns as Porter himself later spun under the name of O. Henry.* As a group, they answered philosophically to the name of Tropical Tramps. Since World...