Word: underworld
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...figure since Israfel, Hervey Allen's life of Poe. Its report of Dreiser's last years is perfunctory and its criticism of his work is so noncommittal that the reader has trouble in fathoming Author Elias' own opinion. But Dreiser's youth in the gaslit underworld of Terre Haute, his work in the rowdy newspaper and music publishing houses of the turn of the century, and above all, the gaudy entrances & exits of his extraordinary sisters, make it a kind of nonfiction Tom Jones or Moll Flanders; it evokes a period of tragicomic misunderstandings, petty thefts...
Author Elias, like most of Dreiser's critics, makes much of his determination to gain wealth in order to achieve a respectable life. But this record makes it clear that by respectability Dreiser meant simply a freedom from cruel underworld jokes, or the appalling misrepresentation of his simplest actions. When he wrote of poverty he was not writing of ordinary working-class life, but of something highly specialized existing within it, with its own codes and manners, disciplines, hardships and horrors...
...square-topped pyramid balanced on twin sticks, still stalked the streets in his cap and dark blue cape. The portly headwaiter too, who greeted both Barbara Hutton and Marshal von Brauchitsch with the same bow, had weathered the storm without a ruffle. Georges, the pander of the prewar underworld, had actually improved his status; he was now a respectable black-marketeer...
...Elizabethan England there was a recognized underworld profession called "ruffling" or "roaring," whose practitioners could be hired to turn the air blue against an enemy...
...returned to Florida. After another long stretch, a big time Capone-style badman has reappeared, and after several uncomfortable roles as farmer, professor, and sundry other sincere people, Edward G. Robinson has joyfully hoped into the gangster's shell to be Johnny Rocco, yah, Johnny Rocco, King of the Underworld. Throw in Humphrey Bogart and a fast moving plot, season with Lionel Barrymore, spice with Lauren Bacall and you have Key Largo, the best gangster show since High Sierra...