Word: waif
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...starting place is Paris and the German armies are on the move to complete their Occupation. The odd couple who dominate the action are soldiers of ill fortune. The plight of S.L. Jacobowsky (Joel Grey) is dire; he is a Polish refugee Jew. He is also a Chaplinesque waif with the resilient ingenuity to trip up brute force. Colonel Tadeusz Boleslav Stjerbinsky (Ron Holgate) is a towering Polish nobleman full of caste prejudices. He has the voice of an opera star, and a conviction that war and patriotism are twin badges of honor...
...America, fiction is always in trouble. The novel has been receiving extreme unction for 20 years, the short story is the waif of literature, perennially searching for a home. Yet this fall, scores of worthy novels have issued from distinguished publishers; stories still find a loyal readership. Random House Editorial Director Jason Epstein notes that James Michener's novel Chesapeake is selling twice as well as his last one. A first novel, Final Payments by Mary Gordon, has sold 40,000 copies. Says Epstein: The outlook for U.S. fiction has "never been better...
...spooky, spaced-out waif of Carrie and 3 Women is growing up-and dressing up. "I love to get all duded up. It's one of the real me's," says Sissy Spacek, 28, who struts about in diamonds and furs for her first role as a mature woman in Heart Beat. The movie tells the story of the late Beat author Jack Kerouac and of Neal Cassady, a onetime car thief and the model for Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road. Spacek plays Carolyn, a well-bred commercial artist who is married...
Charles Spencer Chaplin had risen from the darkest of London slums. His father was an alcoholic; his mother sewed blouses for 1½ pence each. Charlie's great character was a memory of that Dickensian experience, a waif in the tradition of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. Comedy derives from the Greek kōmos, a dance. And indeed, as The Tramp capered about with his unique sleight of foot, he created a choreography of the human condition. In classics like Modern Times, The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator, objects spoke out as never before: bread rolls became ballet...
...gets cornered into lending his apartment to philandering higher-ups in the Big New York Conglomerate in which he works. (Just a few years later, Lemmon, having played this role once too often, turned into a grotesque caricature of himself.) Shirley MacLaine is appropriately touching as the tough-tender waif that Lemmon falls for, and Fred MacMurray is menacing in the uncharacteristically villainous role of Lemmon's sleazy boss. The script, by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, is sophisticated and funny; and although it deals with suicide, adultery, and the impersonality of the modern-day corporation, the film is remarkably cheerful...