Word: shows
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...West reminisced about her ten months in Britain, where she revived her 20-year-old Diamond Lil: "I was quite a social success, as well as with my show. I met the King and Queen. I guess I met everybody there was to meet. I even had a lot of the Oxford boys after me." The boys were "quite exciting" and "I had twelve proposals." Mae concluded that her own attractions are universally appreciated: "I have the masses, I have the classes, I have all types of people...
...Harvard's sacrosanct Varsity Club, the Harvard first team sipped champagne-an old pre-game ritual. By tradition, the first toast is given by the captain of the last Harvard team to whip Yale (Fran Lee of the '41 team). But Lee failed to show up, and a substitute was pressed into service. It may have been a favorable omen. Next afternoon, on the first play of the game, a crimson-shirted Harvard halfback cut back through tackle and raced 80 yards to a touchdown...
Light Up the Sky (by Moss Hart; produced by Joseph M. Hyman & Bernard Hart) is a sort of venomous paean to show business. With a veteran's often bitter knowledge, Playwright Moss Hart has chronicled the out-of-town opening of an ambitious $300,000 drama. In a hotel suite before the performance, the swishy director (Glenn Anders), the splashy producer (Sam Levene) and the gushy leading lady (Virginia Field) spray the atmosphere with love, and the idealistic young playwright with admiration. Six hours later, when the show seems to be a flop, the playwright is denounced...
...whole thing is slambang, cutthroat stuff: it flings vanity and vulgarity in bucketfuls, like swill. It is, to be sure, burlesque; but burlesque, in some cases, of theater types for whom mere satire might be understatement. Yet its most successful moments stem from the actual small details of show business, and its most entertaining characters-the star's mother (Phyllis Povah) and the producer's wife (Audrey Christie)-are lowbrow rather than outrageous...
...more harsh than funny. It has very little wit-its long suit is billingsgate; and its most valuable asset is the malice displayed by everybody (and not least by the author*). At the end Mr. Hart has all his characters behaving beautifully again, and even implies that show folk are all just high strung screwballs anyway. It is a little as if, having blurted all the unpleasant truths he could think of, Mr. Hart blandly winds up with: "It was all just a joke; I didn't really mean a word...