Word: shortly
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Mason's vehicle on this occasion is Mid-summer, a sentimental comedy that had a short Broadway run in 1953, written by Vina Delmar (chiefly known for her serialized novels in women's magazines). The play is not very substantial; but it is at least competently written and, in this production, always engaging. The beginning, however, is unfocussed; and there are numerous evidences of obvious padding, where, for instance, characters quote poetry, the Declaration of Independence, the agnostic writing of Robert Ingersoll, and the roster of U.S. presidents, or occupy themselves in a spelling bee and an arithmetic problem...
...tranquilizer during those long introspective sessions over cold tea at the Bick. The theory went like this: that Harvard was an alien place, staffed with immobile minds, sealed with several centuries of strict tradition, garlanded with unalterable standards, and cast in a peculiarly rigid social structure. In short, the Cambridge strata were well-rutted and different. Morris as one of the eager young men from elsewhere appeared in such a society and became immediately, and noticeably, uncomfortable...
...After five short-lived assaults on the 47-day endurance record for single-engine aircraft (set by Woody Jongeward and Bob Woodhouse in 1949), two madcaps employed by Dallas' hyperthyroid station KLIF gave up for the time being. Their best effort: 12 hours. Actually, there was little reason for them to keep flying; they had already stirred up a mighty propwash of publicity for Promoter Gordon Mc-Lendon's five-station chain...
...hero (William Holden) is the captain of a British "suicide tug." assigned in the early years of World War II to rescue freighters that have been torpedoed but not sunk in the sea roads that converge on Britain. Guns are in such short supply that the tugs must put to sea unarmed except for some futile pom-poms of antique design. They are sitting ducks for the U-boats that usually lie in wait for rescue parties, and even if a captain should survive the shelling, he is pretty sure to succumb to the inhuman strain of fighting without weapons...
...Amis-can have much to teach Author Doris Lessing about her craft. Moreover, her anger is never clothed in whining self-pity or adolescent sneers. Born in Persia, raised in South Africa and now a Londoner, Doris Lessing finds life less than perfect wherever she finds herself. The short stories in The Habit of Loving pick up her quarry in places as varied as France, South Africa, England, Bavaria. As might be expected, the title is ironic. In these stories there is a good deal more of habit than of loving...