Word: tailoring
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Similar misfortune has befallen The Angel Levine, Bernard Malamud's pithy and whimsical parable of an elderly Jewish tailor and his war with God. In the film Zero Mostel portrays Mishkin, a decrepit, latter-day Job on whom God has visited terrible plagues. His Manhattan shop has burned to the ground while insufficiently insured. His wife Fanny (Ida Kaminska) is on her death bed and driving him meshugge (crazy) with petty demands. His back is killing him and-ah, cruel Jehovah!-his only daughter has married an Italian. His faith is moribund, and to revive it an unlikely angel...
...early scenes contain some wildly funny dialogue-most of which has been taken directly from Malamud's story. Mostel is especially entertaining doing the tailor-on-the-roof routine that is his forte. But even Zero's comic genius cannot carry the lugubrious sermonizing about black-Jewish relationships and the mawkish comedy that goes with it. In a reverse insult, Levine calls Mishkin "nigger," to which Mishkin replies, "This is the way a Jewish angel talks...
There is a sadness in Nilsson's work too, but, like the great tragic clowns, he feels that he may as well put on a cheerful front until proved wrong. His specialty is the melancholy ballad delivered with an upbeat melody. Mr. Tinker, for example, is about a tailor whose life has passed him by. "It isn't easy for a tailor/When there's nothing left to sew" goes one of its lines. The lyrics may be sorrowful, but the music is pure devil-may-care...
...resign several times over what he considered to be the company's wrong-headed diversification policy. In 1965, Billera took over as president, and set out to put his own ideas into effect. He had already had a successfully diverse career. The son of an Italian immigrant tailor, Billera grew up on New York's Lower East Side, worked as a railway-station porter and semipro basketball and baseball player. He also attended night classes at City College of New York, earning a degree in business administration. Today his salary is $122,000 a year. "I stopped working...
...lines to complete a single purchase: one to select the item, another to pay for it, a third to pick it up. Red tape snarls every transaction. The Moscow weekly Economic Gazette recently published a study of the paperwork necessary to order a pair of pants from a Soviet tailor shop. No fewer than four magazine-size blanks must be filled out, it said, adding that Soviet trousers "eat" enough paper each year to print a daily newspaper with a circulation of 30,000. Costs mount, not only in wasted materials, but also in salaries for an army of paper...