Word: sadism
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Eldest of eleven children of an English country parson, apparently a solid character, John Cowper Powys was erratic from the start. From early childhood, he says, his life was dominated by a besetting neurotic sin. He calls it sadism but from the many examples he gives it sounds more like the peeping passion. As a young man he used to make trips to Brighton for the sole purpose of looking at girls' legs as they lay on the beach. For years he periodically bought and feverishly devoured armfuls of French pornographic books. When he first went to Manhattan, penny...
...through his facial expression to a large extent. No one can watch those lips utter "Do you hear me" without being impressed by their sensual cruelty. They contain the story of sexual repression which has asserted itself in a possessive love of his daughter, Elizabeth, which amounts almost to sadism...
...through his facial expression to a large extent. No one can watch those lips utter "Do you hear me" without being impressed by their sensual cruelty. They contain the story of sexual repression which has asserted itself in a possessive love of his daughter, Elizabeth, which amounts almost to sadism...
...King of Kings (1927), The Sign of the Cross (1932). "A religious picture never failed," says the man who was decorated with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1928. With the Bible to inspire him, he is able to conjure up breath-taking scenes of sadism, warfare and mass debauchery on the part of ancients who did not believe in God. Since Cleopatra has nothing to do with Christianity, it lacks most of the emotional impact DeMille usually gets into his pictures. The best substitute for emotion is spectacle but even here De Mille...
...made Tammany careless, and Mayor LaGuardia's investigations are gradually developing a complete picture of its makeup and methods. The people of New York may tolerate graft and financial corruption as unavoidable evils, but, cynical as they may be, they cannot fail to be moved profoundly by maudlin sadism...