Word: saracens
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Social Union, choosing as its emblem a map of Sicily with a cross planted on its southern tip -where St. Paul is said to have planted one 2,000 years ago. And from a thousand ancient balconies he appealed skillfully to the age-old Sicilian conviction that "foreigners"-whether Saracen, Norman or mainland Italian-have only one interest in Sicily: the amount of plunder they can take out of it. "They have called me a Trojan horse," croaked Milazzo in a campaign-frazzled voice. "But I am not that. I am a pure-blooded Sicilian horse, a noble animal...
...plain Sicilians, such legends are not old wives' tales but part of everyday life -along with Christian miracles, Saracen tales of derring-do, and glittering fantasies of the U.S. way of life. The background against which these visions take shape is composed of blasted heaths and stark, sun-baked mountains; in the foreground are a rich aristocracy and poor peasantry whose lot is still hard despite the great strides toward prosperity made by Sicily in the past decade. Between the two extremes roam the brigands and the men of the Mafia, who from time immemorial have existed by making...
...Long live Gamal, founder of Arab union!" roared the Cairo Deputies of the first leader to make a start toward the ancient dream of Arab brotherhood since Saladin united his Saracen hosts against the Crusaders in 1174. In Syria's Damascus the celebration was wilder. Bedouins whirled through the Arab sword dance. Soviet-made helicopters swooped overhead, 50,000 citizens paraded with their "Arab Unity" banners past the Parliament. Dark-suited legislators, who had just voted themselves and aging President Kuwatly out of jobs, produced guns from somewhere and blazed away into the sky in celebration...
...eight years he has produced eight historical novels which have sold 8,000,000 copies in hard covers alone (The Saracen Blade, The Vixens, The Golden Hawk, etc.). Doubleday's Dollar Book Club (nearly 750,000 members) has picked seven of the eight, and the Literary Guild has often used Yerby's novels as "gift books" to attract new members...
...Saracen Blade (Columbia) suggests that Hollywood may be getting as tired of making historical pictures as many moviegoers are of looking at them. Using plenty of stock shots and operating on a low budget, the film goes on a foot-dragging Technicolor pilgrimage through 13th century Italy, with a side trip to the Holy Land for one of the skimpiest Crusades in filmland history. Ricardo Montalban plays the peasant hero who does battle with evil barons, cruel Saracens and assorted charmers, including Betta St. John and blonde Carolyn Jones, a graduate of TV's Dragnet. Despite the costumes...