Word: vacuous
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...best-selling historical novel about the era of Cortes. Tyrone Power keeps a medium-tight rein on his passionate Spanish nature; Lee J. Cobb is a boozer who likes disguises; Cesar Romero-a rather thin Stout Cortes-wears a rich black beard. Newcomer Jean Peters plays a pretty, vacuous runaway barmaid who is described, enthusiastically, as "a wench for the New World." Thomas Gomez, in priestly robes, puts forward a few ill-chosen words in favor of the conquest of Mexico (something a few centuries too soon, for a churchman of imperial Spain, about the happy day when...
...Nazis popping buzz-bombs into London, and Adelaide, at the ripe age of 80, still domiciled in Britannia Mews. British Novelist Margery Sharp (The Nutmeg Tree, Cluny Brown, etc.) must have written this one on the back of a series of old paper bags. Disjointed, rambling and generally vacuous, the story limps from coincidence to coincidence, casually adopting or deserting characters along the way, ending in a burst of good, old-fashioned bathos. Novelist Sharp, who usually manages to be witty, or at least catty, can offer here only a few naughty four-letter words, moments of much-diluted...
Aware that somewhat vacuous Ambassador Harriman needed all the help he could get, the State Department reinforced him with its No. 1 expert on Poland, chubby Elbridge Durbrow, who left Washington for Moscow last fortnight. Young (41), capable Mr. Durbrow is no diplomatic giant, but he knows Poland and he understands the Russians...
Inspired Vacuity. The Phaidon Velazquez reproduces 13 of the painter's immortalizations of his royal master's vacuous stare, massy chin and handlebar mustachios which at night he kept in perfumed leather cases. There is also an inspired side show of infantas, royal dwarfs, idiots, buffoons and a little gallery of Velazquez' early, almost photographic genre pictures done in his precourt days when Velazquez used to brag: "I would rather be the first of the vulgar painters than the second of the refined ones." In strong contrast are a number of the passionless religious paintings of which...
...inmate of one of the largest penitentiaries in the world, San Quentin. A horrible prison, through which one sees a stream of faces; solemn, accusing faces, and vacuous, prying faces that twitch and slobber in thrill-sated ecstasy at sight of one who still professes his patriotism...