Word: venal
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...actors, however, survive the encounter. Guinness as Prince Feisal is finely serpentine, and Quinn is magnificent as the venal and violent Sheikh Auda abu Tayi, a great black hairy camel of a man who sucks up gold as a camel sucks up water, and then spews it out with a roar of patriarchal pride: "I am a river to my people!" But it is O'Toole who continually dominates the screen, and he dominates it with professional skill, Irish charm and smashing good looks. They are the looks of a healthy young lion: large strong animal mouth, blazing blue...
...organization of American society," writes Paul Goodman, 51, roving lecturer, author and professional dissenter, "is an interlocking system of semi-monopolies notoriously venal, an electorate notoriously unenlightened, misled by mass media notoriously phony, and a baroque state waging cold war against another baroque state...
...only five can pretend to be human beings. What's more, three of the five are stupid and cowardly, and the best of them, the noblest instance of mankind that Kurosawa can discover, is the mercenary samurai-a professional killer. Everybody else in the picture is lecherous, treacherous, venal or criminally insane...
...whose wonderful, self-congratulating look seemed to say: "Look at me. I'm all woman, and it will be a long time before you see such a woman again." She took a long, unforgettable walk in the rain through the streets of the city, drinking the applause of venal eyes...
...time, Emile enjoys a mindlessly sensual affair with a married woman (Janet Ward). But the lure of the egg is too strong. He marries a bureaucrat's daughter and becomes a civil servant. When his wife is unfaithful, Emile turns venal and takes money from her lover "for the entertainment." Fearful that the pair might kill him, Emile murders his wife with the lover's revolver. In a hilarious scene of courtroom parody, the lover is sentenced to a 20-year jail term, and Emile yelps gleefully to the audience "That's the system...