Word: salesman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...crafting the first major multinational corporation, Standard Oil, Rockefeller (1839-1937) provided a sneak preview of the 20th century. At his zenith, he refined, distributed and marketed nearly 90% of America's oil. The unlikely offspring of a raffish snake-oil salesman and a strict Baptist mother, Rockefeller grew up in several rustic hamlets in upstate New York and Ohio. He began his career as an assistant bookkeeper in a Cleveland, Ohio, commodity-brokerage house in 1855 and invested in his first refinery during the Civil...
...income redistribution. Anyone familiar with Los Angeles will realize the timeliness of their "rob the rich" scam in which Heinrich Grigoris (Greg Tucci) boosts the sales of his alarms by staging robberies in the neighborhood of his potential clients. The twist in Grigoris' scheme is Tommy, the new salesman played with adorable, bumbling style by David Arquette. The real credit in The Alarmist must go to the actors. Like Mt. Rushmore, their place in the surroundings is hard to surmise, but they define it anyway. It is hard to sort out what was what and who was right...
...bent on income redistribution. Anyone familiar with Los Angeles will realize the timeliness of their "rob the rich" scam in which Heinrich Grigoris (Greg Tucci) boosts the sales of his alarms by staging robberies in the neighborhoods of potential clients. The twist in Grigoris' scheme is Tommy, the new salesman played with adorable, bumbling style by David Arquette. A natural at the hook, the Tommy's moral sensibilities are deeply troubled by Grigoris' less-than-honest sales strategy, which he markets to Tommy under the "rob the rich to feed the poor" label. While Grigoris feeds scruple-free...
Beyond this high-grade sitcom, one of the appealing possibilities of The Alarmist is the voyeurism offered by the "door-to-door salesman" frame. Sadly, the possibility of venturing into the mansions of West Los Angeles and meeting the natives remains largely unexploited. While Tommy does go door-to-door, the characters he encounters are not archetypal Angelenos, but a stereotypically elderly market. A little closer to the mark and this movie would have many movie-industry types squirming in their seats, but The Alarmist is estranged from the hip alarm-buying populous of aging baby boomers. Gale...
...surroundings is hard to surmise, but they define it anyway. They convince the audience of what is happening, and sell the surreal with their gregarity. David Arquette is set with a particularly difficult part in the role of Tommy, who must be both densely naive and a stunningly talented salesman. His innocent pursuit of a sophisticated older woman has a good shot at being the new classic in the older woman-younger man scenario. Kate Capshaw is similarly adept in this situation; she is seductive without being evil, and perfectly outrageous when she is introduced to Tommy's provincial family...