Word: witlessness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Giving advertising a macabre twist, Pacific Air Lines is seeking to lure passengers by selling spoof instead of frills. "HEY THERE! YOU WITH THE SWEAT IN YOUR PALMS," read the headline that kicked off its nationwide campaign. "Most people are scared witless of flying," it went on. Moreover, the ad revealed, every time a P.A.L. plane takes off a pilot wonders "if this is it." Explaining the odd campaign, New York Lawyer Matthew E. McCarthy, the trunk line's chief executive and biggest shareholder, said: "It's basically honest. We spoof the passengers' concern, but at least...
...with Lyndon Johnson. But when iconoclastic Director Joan Littlewood brought Barbara Garson's Mac-Bird to town, the critics threw every pan in the kitchen. After seeing the pseudo-Shakespearean parody about Johnson and the death of President Kennedy, the London Daily Mail's critic growled: "Immeasurably witless rubbish." The London Times sniffed: "It is pointless to get too indignant. The production successfully torpedoes what was already a fragile and leaky craft...
...stiff little walk and a careful continental accent that slips unexpectedly into stage British-but the mannerisms never add up to the man Poirot. Anita Ekberg as a bosomy psychopath and Robert Morley as a bungling secret service man offer no noticeable help as they spout reams of witless dialogue set to tuba music. By the time the corpse count reaches the letter D, moviegoers hooked on murder-for-fun will find themselves wishing that the blobby Miss Marple had stayed on the case a bit longer...
Bunuel's theme is the seductive power of Evil. Earlier, when Josef and a Fascist friend were composing anti-Semitic tracts, a witless scullery-maid unwittingly contributed a phrase, by voicing her opinion on a point of rhetoric. We are never sure how close to moral seduction our protagonist Celestine is, as she struggles in the currents of circumstance. We too feel seduced when Bunuel's devious camera involves our gaze in the seemingly innocuous--a butterfly on a window--then pulls back to show us our complicity in senseless violence--as the senile grandfather blasts it with a shotgun...
...Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation, former New York City Detective Charles O'Hara goes far beyond the familiar Mutt & Jeff routine in which a suspect is scared witless by a "bad guy" detective and is then saved by a "good guy" who coaxes him to shame the baddy by talking freely. O'Hara not only stresses "bluff on a split