Word: witness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Stevenson could help the national ticket in more general ways. Because he realizes he lacks his father's eloquence and wit, he concentrates instead on making his speeches rhetoric-free and responsive to issues--a trait in short supply this year. Stevenson, who some say knows the issues better than his father did, is given high marks for his performance in the Senate. His well-recognized participation in the drafting of the aid package for New York City would help Carter in stricken urban areas and a knowledgability in foreign affairs seems to run in the family. On energy, Stevenson...
...reckons, hope, a certain confidence and an ability to cope are nurtured. Boorstin is intrigued at how some of the open-air, back-fence values of Editor William Allen White, the Emporia sage of the 1920s, have re-entered the national discussion and how the small-town wisdom and wit of Will Rogers have been rekindled on the stage with amazing success by James Whitmore (who also does a nice impression of the man from Independence, Harry Truman...
...Jewish stars and a crimson seesaw; this is Russell's representation of Mahler's conversion from Judaism to Catholicism. The scene-like much of the movie-means to be shocking but succeeds only in being a little naughty. Mahler is overripe, hyperbolic, hysterical, without any of the wit of last year's Tommy or the full-tilt craziness of The Devils (1971). There are stunning flashes of beauty (Mahler, as a boy, seeing a white horse in a midnight forest) and true terror (the composer dreaming himself locked in a coffin en route to his own cremation...
...Witness for the Prosecution. Great actors often hit a stretch in their careers when they get picked up exclusively for curmudgeon roles. Charles Laughton does his here, and does it with conviction and wit. Playing a sly and grumpy barrister with a heart condition, he sometimes tips his actor's hand by a little too much of the loveable Churchillian bit; generally he is unforgettable. Almost as important here is his wife Elsa Lanchester who mostly pipes at Laughton and confiscates his cigars. Yes, it's true that even in middle age Marlene Dietrich has terrific legs...
...Italy just prior to 1984, the Prince and his courtiers are actual political figures: the head of the Partito Communista Enrico Berlinguer, "the Professor," Giovanni Leone, current president of Italy, and a host of others. By using these Italian politicians for characters, the author sharpens the point of his wit--the more so since, like a good cartoonist, he draws caricatures which are not so exaggerated as to be unimaginable, and whose features are distorted so as to feed his audience's already-formulated perceptions and biases...