Word: slickness
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...danger with a zeal that takes no account of our civil liberties. It wounds the innocent as well as the guilty. It is a parody of righteous justice. That extreme I have firmly and explicitly renounced . . . The opposite extreme, is no less repugnant to me. [It] talks in the slick vocabulary of 'red herring' and 'phantoms' ... It rejects the idea that you and I, in order to sustain our individual liberties, must remain helpless in the face of Communist conspiracy . . . Freedom can defend itself without destroying itself...
...hour and a half later La Sibylle had not surfaced, and the alarm was given. The entire squadron, its planes and helicopters criss-crossed the area. For five hours the search went on. Then pilots noted a large oil slick about six miles off Cape Camarat, near Toulon. Soundings were made; what seemed to be the wrecked submarine was located at a depth of 2,000 feet. All night searchlights swept the dark water, but there was really no hope of finding survivors: submarine escape gear is useless below a depth of 250 feet. Next morning the French navy announced...
Adapted from Robert Fontaine's artlessly artful 1945 novel and the 1950 hit play of the same name, The Happy Time comes to the screen as a sort of Andy Hardy family of Canada. It substitutes slick film-making for the real wonder, strangeness and nostalgia of childhood, and a rather heavy-handed coyness for the lightheartedness of the original. The most genuinely human touch in the picture is provided by Charles Boyer's warm performance as papa, and his impassioned delivery of a lecture about the facts of life & love to wide-eyed Bibi...
...after). Basically, they are overblown news stories, combining amateurish attempts at character analysis with homey anecdotes about the Governor frolicking with his kids on the front lawn. Neither book is well written because, I suppose, quotations, homily, and hum-drum are incompatible with polished prose. At best, they are slick...
...Language is, in short, a hodgepodge of all the worst that the modern slick theatrical comedy has to offer. It capitalizes on smut and unfunny topical references, and does not bother to channel the audience's sympathy towards any of the characters. The character analysis itself is in fact so shallow as to be practically negligible: the Americans are boisterous, self-centered, and of course thoroughly likable, the Italians explosive and over emotional; and that is the end of it. As for the mechanics of the show--Raoul Pene Du Bois' scenery and costumes--there is little to say except...