Word: skittish
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film maker, Brooks wants to knock you cockeyed. For a laugh, he will do anything, try anything. He rains gags. After a Brooks bit, audiences can be exhausted; after a Brooks film, there is the lingering feeling of having been pummeled. Brooks is like a young, slightly skittish fighter whose energy compensates for lack of finesse. He hits out wildly, continuously, hoping that a few punches will land. Since comedy audiences usually have their guard down (they want to be entertained and they expect the pile-driving), Brooks generally succeeds. He keeps the pressure turned up high, and the laughs...
Writer Ambrose Bierce once observed that "the gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling." Yet in today's skittish economic climate, most businessmen can only view with envy the profitable growth of the gaming empire headed by William Fisk Harrah, 63. It includes two glossy Nevada casinos-one in Reno, one in Lake Tahoe-along with two hotels containing 19 food-service areas and 18 cocktail bars. In the fiscal year ended in June, Harrah's Inc. of Reno, one of two gambling operations listed on the New York Stock Exchange...
...junta's last president, General Gizikis, invited Caramanlis to take over the collapsing government. Caramanlis retained Gizikis as a figurehead president and, in deference to public sentiment, finally exiled five other members of the junta--strong-man George Papadopoulos included--to the Aegean island of Kea. But his skittish attitude towards punishment of the leaders and instruments of dictatorship, including known torturers, has drawn sharp criticism from the opposition. He did gain credit as being independent of American influence--and soothed people's self-esteem--by taking Greece out of NATO...
...Reykjavik, Iceland, when it looked as if his match with Boris Spassky for the world chess championship might actually take place, all hell broke loose at Kennedy International Airport. This time the perpetrator was not a freaked-out Fischer but a small boy who discovered the skittish grand master hiding in an airport bar and led a charge of newsmen to the scene. Bobby bolted out the door, across a highway and vanished into the gloom. His handlers meanwhile, fending off the reporters with kicks and body blocks, were approached by a cop who got right to the heart...
...television networks are becoming less skittish about dealing with "adult" subjects. But what about audiences? The question was raised most recently by Born Innocent, a made-for-TV movie that NBC telecast in the new season's first week. A chilling exposition of life in a juvenile detention home, the two-hour-long show featured a powerful performance by Actress Linda Blair, playing a nubile 14-year-old girl who is destroyed by an inhumane system. It was harsh, realistic drama, and the climax was as raw as anything yet seen on network TV-a scene in a shower...