Word: villainous
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Butler published The Way of All Flesh posthumously because it was obviously autobiographical, and the villain of the story was his father. His hatred of his father was one of the guiding motives of his life. His rebellion against the stifling upbringing in his home, a gloomy country parsonage, led him to rebel against other sacred authorities, so that a later generation regarded him as "the first great exploder of Victorian hypocrisy, the pioneer rebel and inveigher against cant." Wrong, says Muggeridge. Far from being the great Anti, Butler was the Ultimate Victorian; his wildest crusades simply took him further...
While the teachers were bickering over such momentous musical concerns, a situation arose for them all to feel anger on the same side. Author of the situation, and its villain, was fat, horny-handed James C. Petrillo, who heads the Chicago Federation of Musicians and forbade them last fortnight to make recordings after Feb. i (TIME, Jan. 4). As Draconic as ever, Mr. Petrillo refused to have 12 young students and teachers play for the convention because they did not belong to his union, would not let the Carl Schurz, High School Choir sing for the teachers until its three...
Under the Federal Theatre staging of Gerald Cornell, Frederic Hughes' "Life's a Villain" gets its first run anywhere at the Repertory Theatre this week. This play is one of these divided things which never quite decides what it is to be, social commentary or romantic comedy. The major theme of rich boy meets poor girl--or poor rich boy meets rich poor girl--has class overtones occasionally, but only every so often. Usually it is just the amusing and quite classless angle which is stressed, though sometimes the play seems to consider itself as a social...
...finished daughters." This of course is pretty sweeping; the Country Club set should feel thoroughly chagrined. But then the affair wanders back into comedy pure and romantic in fact these often charming and often rather bewildering oscillations between comedy and comment set the tone of "Life's a Villain." In the long run it's the plot that counts. The author in making the play probably began with the simple incident of a poor girl falling off a dock at the lakeside home of a wealthy banker, and let himself be carried from there. In the course of his journey...
...total effect of "Life's a Villain" is somewhat bewildering. The title, the first sight of the sophisticated crowd which serves as a background for the main story, the first blares of commonness from nouvelles-riches Mrs. Holt and Mrs. Turner; all lead one to expect social commentary rather than sentiment, for surely these people are not here just to be amusing. But then you do get the sentiment. And it's often quite nice. One only wishes that he did not get that disturbing feeling of something not quite said...