Word: scholarly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Turkish corners were the rage; puff-sleeved, pompadoured pinups from the pen of Charles Dana Gibson blossomed on college study walls; bicycling scorchers menaced pedestrians; and rural free delivery was about to be established by law. The year was 1895. The same year, the late, great, tragic scholar and editor Harry Thurston Peck (Twenty Years of the Republic) began publishing in the Bookman the first U.S. best-seller lists, compiled on the basis of sales in the nation's 30 or 40 leading bookstores...
Lean, leisurely Arnaldo Cortesi was schooled in Italy and England, became something of a scholar and a connoisseur of wines. He learned to like the cafe life of Rome, and the way Mussolini's trains ran on time. Leftwingers loudly accused the Times of employing a Fascist apologist; and even other Timesmen rebutted him on occasion...
...hears strange music and is irresistibly drawn to a certain bridge in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. There, his brother's white-tied ghost rises from the water, and jazzily explains to the learned goof that Buzzy, star witness in a gangster murder, has been bumped off. The scholar, his double, must replace him at the Pelican, play upon the superstitious sensibilities of his killers, avenge his death by placing his fatal information in the hands of the D.A. (Otto Kruger). Just to help out in hard places, such as impersonating a great floorshow star when you know nothing...
Granted what he is given to work with -a first-rate idea developed in second gear -Danny Kaye does a beautiful job. As the scholar he merely sketches charmingly, without perfecting, the humor, pathos and odd dignity the role might have ; but as the nightclub star he is magnificent. At the straight comic setpieces - the dancing and delivery of the bangtwanging Bali Boogie; the impersonation of a Russian baritone in Laocoonic struggle between his hay fever and Otchi Tchorniya; a glistening little telephonic imitation of a pet shop in full cry, including goldfish; and the hilarious opera climax - Kaye...
...honor the man who had brought prestige to Union and fame to himself as a liberal, a scholar and a Christian gentleman, Union announced that it would raise a $500,000 endowment fund to bear the Coffin name, and rename its main administration building Henry Sloane Coffin Hall...