Word: shrewdness
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...croak--but the playwright's subtle speech rhythms prove too difficult for her to handle, and her performance often collapses into singsong. Burgess, the professor, seems capable enough though, in view of his large experience, he too is a little disappointing. His character possesses two sides: poet and, ultimately, shrewd businessman. The merchant is present in his performance from the beginning, but somehow the role never grows quite large enough. The veteran actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, on the other hand, adds one more to her long list of impressive performances in the part of Undershaft's rather stupid, tradition-bound...
Magnolias & Monkeyshines. Running against Morton is former Governor (1947-50) Earle Clements, 59, a shrewd, tough Democrat who has kept his fences well mended during his six years in the Senate. Even so, Clements was leaving nothing to chance. He campaigned 18 hours a day last week, allowed himself only two daily luxuries: a hot bath in the afternoon, a quart of ice cream at night (he shuns bourbon when on campaign duty). Clements' campaign technique: magnolias and corn ("Now I understand why Kentucky is known far and wide for its lovely, gracious ladies. I hope you will...
...iron curtain that worries me. It's the green curtain that comes down every morning between me and my cabbage." In the argot of workaday Rome, the green curtain is the term used to describe the veil of mystery behind which the shrewd middlemen in the city's huge wholesale vegetable market operate to send the prices of simple foodstuffs soaring...
...Slap in the Face. From then on, Gigi worked his revenge. Nannarella's trucks met mysterious accidents, and the potatoes in her warehouse started going bad. A shrewd marketman knows well how to ruin his rivals' stock. Her resources dwindled, and one by one her subjects abandoned her. By spring she was facing bankruptcy. Nannarella sought out Gigi. "Give me back my subjects," she said, "and I'll let you have all my remaining potatoes." Gigi only laughed, so Nannarella slapped him hard across the face. One of Gigi's brawny henchmen seized...
From the days of Mark Hanna through the present dominance of Leonard Hall, no one has ever accused the Republican Party of not being shrewd. The party's latest move, the Ithaca ploy, is certainly a marvel of political duplicity. By masquerading a television campaign program by Vice-President Nixon as a press conference designed to increase collegiate interest in politics, the Republicans have furthered their interests doubly. Not only do they achieve the usual effects of ordinary television, but they also gain the advantage of seeming to dispense absolute truth, in league with the legions of education...