Word: thurbers
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...biographer of James Thurber is almost certain to put himself inexplicably in the wrong, because whatever approach he takes-jocular, solemn, literary, psychological-he is likely to provoke satirical muttering from Thurber's ghost. The tone of the present biography, an examination of Thurber's literary career by a Pomona College English professor, is clonking and scholarly, and sure enough, muttering seems distinctly audible...
...couple of pieces in Museums seem to have been included to show the author's versatility. One is a whimsy about a group of one-celled pond-water creatures attending a cocktail party. Thurber could do this sort of thing well. Updike can't; except for Bech, a Book, his humor rarely breaks loose from cleverness. For the rest, there is a series of short stories about one of Updike's condescended-to suburban couples, called (smugly) the Maples. The first is very good indeed. It concerns Dick Maple's wobbly, not very creditable reactions when...
According to the credits, The War Between Men and Women was "suggested by the writings and drawings of James Thurber." Peter Wilson, the hero of the movie, resembles Thurber in that he is half blind and a cartoonist; Wilson's drawings, shown in several sequences of the film, are closely adapted from Thurber's own. But there ends any meaningful connection in plot or spirit to the life of the late cartoonist...
...eyes. Scorning pity-and grateful to get out of the house-Wilson enters the hos pital for an operation that checks his on coming blindness but leaves him only barely sighted, though able to draw. His first opus after the operation is an antiwar parable, actually Thurber's The Last Flower, which the film makers have seen fit to animate. When Wilson's young stepdaughter visits him one day and sees the cartoon, her stammer is cured. Reconciliation with Terry can not be far behind...
Having reduced Thurber to a my opic misanthrope and the plot to a sentimental muddle, Director Shavelson gets better acting than he deserves. The cast makes a brave fight of it, and there is an especially fine and funny cameo by Herb Edelman, who plays Wilson's agent. While Wilson and wife war with each other over the impending operation, the agent sits with them at a restaurant table, blubbering and sobbing "the courage, the devotion," oblivious to the fact that the marriage is crumbling around...