Word: witnessed
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Snapped the left-wing Combat: "This absurd regime dishonors France, submits her to ridicule abroad, and is pushing her toward catastrophe." Man for man, few legislatures can equal the men of the French Assembly for wit, eloquence and intelligence. Many of its leaders are honored veterans of the French Resistance. Why are these courageous men unable, despite themselves, to give France a stable government? The answer is simple, but not helpful: France is deeply distrustful of a strong government. Too frequently and too recently, Frenchmen have had to man the barricades against oppression. Since 1789 France has lived under four...
...Tallulah's visit in the capital, however, was marked by such sweetness and light wit. Another Washington visitor, Britain's bodkin-tongued Lady Astor, was invited to share a platform with Actress Bankhead as a fellow guest of honor. Nancy Astor replied that she would never appear anywhere with "that perfectly horrible woman . . . I'm repelled by her!" Upon hearing of ex-M.P. Astor's unparliamentary affront, Tallulah snorted: "She probably disapproves of me as much as I do of her, the bitchy old hypocrite!" Urged to tone down her statement...
Messrs. Teichmann and Kaufman have not confined their wit to one vein or aimed it at one specific target. Early in the evening, for example, they cast out a few promising barbs at the monopolistic tendencies of "free enterprise," but they choose not to linger here, and immediately move on to the subject of Senate investigations, and then to the foibles of the press, and from there to the proxy system of stock-voting. Meanwhile, they have thrown in such diverse gimmicks as a recorded narration, fairly-tale style, by Fred Allen; a slapstick routine of an executive doing...
...characters, all of whom are provided with an adequate supply of pithy remarks to maintain the lightness of the script. Robert Beatey as the son, Peggy Groome as his young, Irish wife, and Joanna Hutchins as her fairy godmother give their parts plenty of spirited individuality. And if wit and enthusiasm were enough, the play would come off very successfully. As it stands, however, it suffers from weak directing by Woody Price. The handling of asides, admittedly difficult, is clumsy in spots, and the timing often seems disjointed, with the result that the play lacks requisite smoothness...
Miss Bisco, as an extremely winning Alice, speaks her lines more clearly than most of the cast, who occasionally bellow or slur Carroll's wit right out of the range of their three-to-ten-year-old audience. But thanks to Thomas Whedon's direction, even when dialogue and lyrics fail to overcome the steady mutter of the junior critics, the pantomime and by-play are sufficient to keep them entertained...