Word: venusized
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Island Rescue (J. Arthur Rank; Universal-International) has a real Venus for its leading lady. She is a goddess among cows, a triumph of scientific breeding, and she lives on the Channel island of Armorel. Since Venus is in calf by champion bull Mars of Mellowbury III, the expected progeny is of vital concern to the British Ministry of Agriculture...
When the Germans invade the island in 1940, Major David Niven is assigned to lead a commando raid on Armorel to rescue Venus. Meanwhile the enemy, headed by Commandant George Coulouris, is preparing to ship Venus to Germany. There ensues a tour de force of arms, with a British submarine braving minefields and Luftwaffe to reach Armorel, an artist hastingly camouflaging another cow to look like Venus in order to confound the Germans, and a battle in which a British destroyer sinks a German E-boat with depth charges...
...This science-fiction approach is like "explaining" lightning by calling it a weapon of Zeus: it merely supplants one mystery by another mystery. Calling the saucers space ships explains them, after a fashion, but it summons up the greater mystery of a godlike super-race living on Mars or Venus. "How simple is this sort of science," says Menzel, "and how wrong...
...aspect of his saucer research saddens Dr. Menzel. People like sensations, he says. The marvelous ships from space, manned by wise little people from Venus or Mars, brought a kind of frightening diversion into a jittery world. Dr. Menzel is aware that a debunker is not always a popular man. "I," he says sadly, "am the man who shot Santa Claus...
...symbolism of the first and the morality of the second is both superficial and amusing. This fantasy Smith: A Masque by Alison Lurie describes the dilemna of a young graduate who must choose a life's work. The graduate played by Tom Kennedy must select among Junno and wealth, Venus and artistic fame or Minerva and scholarship. Smith an obstinate fellow will have none of them and the goddesses immediately dispatch him to points unmentionable. Despite an overlong ending, the performance is thoroughly enjoyable...