Word: swoon
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Birdie begins well enough by turning the screen into a mosaic of telephoning teen-agers ("Hello, Mrs. Miller, this is Harvey Johnson, can I speak to Deborah Sue?") that climaxes with every kid in town chattering into enough Princess phones to make A.T. & T. swoon with pride. The arrival of Conrad Birdie in Sweet Apple to plant a symbolic farewell kiss on a local teen-ager (Ann-Margret) before joining the Army is a gas. Platoons of maidens march with placards reading "Spare HIM, Take Me," and Conrad (Jesse Pearson) rides his motorcycle, rough-tired, right up the steps...
Cassius Clay is Hercules, struggling through the twelve labors. He is Jason, chasing the Golden Fleece. He is Galahad, Cyrano, D'Artagnan. When he scowls, strong men shudder, and when he smiles, women swoon. The mysteries of the universe are his Tinker Toys. He rattles the thunder and looses the lightning. "I was marked," he says. "I had a big head, and I looked like Joe Louis in my cradle. People said so. One day I threw my first punch and hit my mother right in the teeth and knocked one out. If you don't believe...
...religious experience, the less able he was to have any other experience. Often he could not even recognize the people around him. In his fellow monks he saw saints and martyrs; in passing strangers he perceived Apostles. At the mention of God's name he sank into a swoon of adoration and could not be wakened by blows, by needles stuck into his limbs, by live coals held against his flesh. Soon he was little more than a holy idiot; yet through this simple instrument, like lightning through a kitestring, a mysterious energy...
...when he starts talking about issues and qualifications, national Democratic leaders swoon in their rocking chairs. Last week, asked about medicare. Donovan replied briskly: "Well, we need a whole new approach.'' What about Kennedy's approach, a program to be financed under Social Security? "Well, the modern liberal should believe in a sound free enterprise system so it can pay for social progress. I think we should explore every avenue by which private organizations can provide medicare before we put it under the Social Security system.'' Did he believe at all in the Social Security...
...puppets move with amazing fluidity and naturalness-every second of screen time represents 24 changes of position; the complete film, running 74 minutes, required exactly 106,560 moves -through scenes designed with antic charm and persistent style. The spectator soon accepts the intricate artifice and sinks happily into a swoon of poesy and forms, well met by moonlight...