Word: somehow
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Somehow, that statement seems to summarize the warped twist of fate that has met the Phils in the playoffs the past two autumns. A slightly less sympathetic way of saying it is that they've choked the last two years...
...state of Maryland has long believed $25,000 a year in salary was plenty for its Governors (before 1967, they got only $15,000). Though the Lieutenant Governor, attorney general and comptroller have all been getting $44,856, the state seemed to feel that the Governor would somehow be demeaned if he got a similar stipend...
This description of the film's story plays it false, makes it seem somehow a schematic representation of a textbook family, when in fact the people of Paradise are carefully particularized. The film is the first time that Gunnel Lindblom, an actress in several Ingmar Bergman movies, has directed (Bergman has the producer's credit). Her touch is usually delicate. Even the unhappy ending is understated, though there is a hint of further tragedy to come. There will be more to this family's life, and not all, of it a misery, before we write finis either...
...Brooks regulars, Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman. Korman, as the neurotic, weak-willed doctor, seems to be trapped in reruns of the Carol Burnett Show. Leachman repeats her role as Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein. Looking for all the world like a wrestler and sporting a pair of somehow dangerous-looking breasts, Nurse Diesel cruelly controls the place, running it the way she dominates her lover. Dr. Montague, whom she beats every night. Believe it or not, the bondage scene is actually funny. Diesel and Montague apparently trap rich patients in the hospital, bleeding their families for all the money...
Despite all the shenanigans--and there are lots of them--High Anxiety somehow fails. In his search for a less manic style of humor Brooks has gone too far in the other direction; his own characterization provides an apt example. Thorndike, as played by Brooks, is a very serious gent, with all the dignity that befits a Harvard faculty member (tenured, of course) and a Nobel laureate. Thorndike radiates a sort of nervous rationality, except during his seizures of High Anxiety, so most of his good lines seem like deadpanned straight lines. Only once is Brooks himself very funny...