Word: shyster
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Force of Evil (Enterprise; MGM) takes a long, unfavorable look at the numbers racket. Notoriously unprofitable for suckers, the racket also turns out to be unrewarding dramatically. A tough young shyster (John Garfield) gets himself neck-deep in crooked shenanigans. When he tries to repay his older and more honest brother (Thomas Gomez) for past favors, he only succeeds in getting the brother caught in the middle of a gang war. To prove fairly conclusively that the racket doesn't really pay, Garfield's passion for a pretty secretary (Beatrice Pearson) comes to a very...
Seasonal vicissitudes combined with the necessity for secrecy have led many cardaddicts to a game involving less suspicion: the ancient pastime of Hearts, now raging from the smoky dens of Eliot to the leather-cushioned bistros of Jordan's Marsh. Inscrutable shyster Robert S. Takeacard (Anycard) '48 smirked over his demitasse last night, "It's better than making book on the mayoralty race. You don't have to buck Mickey...
Most newsmen should know that to call a lawyer a "shyster," an author a "plagiarist," or a doctor a "quack" is usually libelous. But it may surprise them to learn that praising a doctor may be libelous. In Louisiana, a doctor collected damages after the New Orleans Picayune praised an operation he had performed. His claim: the story was, in effect, an ad for him; medical ethics prohibit advertising; his medical standing was therefore damaged...
Author Train's Ephraim Tutt, says Tutt, is not the real Tutt. Train's Tutt, he continues, is not even consistent, changes from story to story, from "mountebank to philosopher, from shyster to philanthropist, from lawbreaker to up holder of the Constitution." The real Tutt is a rebel...
...fraud, centering in New York City, was largely promoted by two shyster law firms. The lawyers' "runners" sought out "small businessmen . . . in financial difficulties because of the depression," told them of an easy way to make money. Heart disease, Dr. Hedley pointed out, "is easy to simulate and difficult to disprove," and juries tend to sympathize with the claimant. So the lawyers hired doctors to coach policyholders how to feign heart attacks and symptoms of coronary arteriosclerosis with angina pectoris...