Word: soaps
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...villain, in the Hollywood sense of the word-even the fascist is an understandable human being. Nowhere have the Swiss fallen into the trap of personifying evil in well-known typed characters: the snivelling, mustached Italian informer, the hard-bitten, blond German storm trooper, or the bloated soap-box Mussolini. Instead, they have kept evil as a massive force--the German Army or War--against which everyone in the film is pitted; the result is a refreshing relief from the run-of-the-mill war movie technique...
...Federal Communications Commission, which operates on the theory that radio is here to stay, last week warned the industry that many listeners might not be. In a 140-page report, FCC told radio that bad programs were losing devotees by droves. Radio's most common and obvious faults: soap operas, too many commercials, allowing the sponsor to have free reign...
...many soap operas glut the daytime hours. The two largest networks, NBC and CBS, carry some 40 between them. Once, in 1940, 55 of the 59½ daytime hours a week were filled with twittering throbbers. Polling U.S. homes, FCC found that during soap-opera hours 76.8% of available listeners had their sets turned...
...Soap First, Then Art. Mary Kingsbury, born in Boston's suburban Chestnut Hill, and Radcliffe-educated, had been a "social worker" for several years; but she despised the Lady Bountiful attitude the term implied. Says she: "I hate to be pictured as a lovely woman doing good. I'm really pretty realistic...
Greenwich House concentrated on improving living conditions first, because, as Mrs. Sim said: "What was the use of bringing art to people who had little soap & water?" Infant care and dental clinics, free milk for babies, diet kitchens, public baths and sports (Gene Tunney did his first boxing in the settlement basement) were added one by one. Over the years, after the soap & water, came the art: a music school, a children's theater, woodcarving, pottery. In 1917 the settlement moved to bigger quarters on Barrow Street. Mrs. Sim agitated for slum clearance, wider streets, parks...