Word: siam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
REMEMBER Milo Minderbinder, in Catch-22? His syndicate, M & M Enterprises, sold cork in New York, shoes in Toulouse, ham in Siam, nails in Wales, tangerines in New Orleans, and coals in Newcastle. And halfway through World War II, he contracted with the American military authorities to bomb the German-held highway bridge at Orvieto and with the German military authorities to defend the highway bridge at Orvieto with anti-aircraft fire against his own attack...
This is a show whose time has come -and long since gone. After a dazzling movie based on Rodgers1 and Hammerstein's 1951 Broadway musical The King and I, the idea of the irascible but lovable monarch of Siam who is tamed by the priggish but lovable English schoolmarm should be retired with honors and prizes. Instead it is being dragged out week after week as an exotic situation comedy...
...usable domestic subject matter, other new entries like ABC's Paul Lynde Show and CBS's Bob Newhart Show extend the already overextended tradition of stale sitcoms-symptoms of TV's banal-retention syndrome. More colorful, if not more original, is Anna and the King (of Siam) on CBS. It has the benefit of Samantha Eggar in the Gertrude Lawrence-Deborah Kerr role, and Yul Brynner in the Yul Brynner-Yul Brynner role, even if it does make the Orient all too scrutable...
Also on CBS, Anna and the King of Siam, which has seen every other incarnation, will turn up as a series called Anna and the King. The schoolteacher will be played by Samantha Eggar; the King by the actor who took the role in Broadway and film musicals and seems to hold a patent on it: Yul Brynner...
Perhaps the most incredible episode comes when, after dragging three crewmen behind the Vance in the speedboat at 15 knots--very nearly drowning all three--Arnheiter leaves them in the Gulf of Siam to surveil a Vietnamese junk he suspects is spotting for a Chinese submarine reported to be in the area. Set adrift, the men try to raise the Vance on the radio; but Arnheiter has sailed out of range. Suddenly they spot a plane, an American plane. It drops down for a look at the junk and finds also a 16-foot speedboat with shark's teeth painted...