Word: sordid
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...character and turning out a turgid Grade B pot-boiler is now on view for the second week at the Keith Memorial in "Primrose Path." Unoriginal in conception, dull--often interminable--in pace and direction, it tells the story of a sweet young thing (Ginger Rogers) caught in the sordid atmosphere created by a prostitute-mother, a constantly drunken father, and an incredibly cruel grandmother. Falling in love with Joel McCrea because he nearly kills her by reckless driving, she conceals her true identity, has the usual misunderstandings, and emerges happy ever after...
...aside from this shift in emphasis, the movie is all that the author himself could want. More restrained in its criticisms and its language, it is nevertheless frank, sordid, and moving. The characters are sharply etched, the dialogue largely Steinbeck and not Zanttek. "The Grapes of Wrath's is the proof of what has long been suspect: Hollywood is capable of escaping from escapism...
...nothing of that. At night in Manhattan lots of people are unsteady on their feet. The man hailed Forney near Ninety-Sixth Street and climbed into his cab. He asked hoarsely to be taken to Bellevue. Forney changed his mind, then. Bellevue, the grim collection of buildings where innumerable sordid little dramas of the city have ended, is perhaps the most famed municipal hospital in the U. S. Many drunks are taken there, but they seldom go voluntarily. Forney decided there was something else wrong with his fare. Bellevue was 70 blocks away...