Word: wits
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...which flowers, lace and plumes seem blown into the set from pealing organ stops and braying horns. Neither this background nor the heavy-footed dialog is well adapted to the natural technique, essentially informal and Parisian, of M. Chevalier. Lubitsch too, who has in the past shown propensities for wit, seems at a disadvantage with his material. Best shot: how the Queen (Jeanette MacDonald) interprets a salute of 400 cannon...
...Berlin storekeeper, Lubitsch learned about acting from a comedian named Victor Arnold and from Max Reinhardt, who hired him for a while. After the Negri pictures, he showed that he was even better at comedy than serious things. He colored The Marriage Circle with a sophisticated, subtle wit. Last year he made The Patriot. Burly, with a habit of scowling slightly, he likes sun baths, rye bread, practical jokes. He treats the young women working for him with waggish irascibility. Complained Miss MacDonald, neophyte, last week...
...usual at such meetings there were dozens of clinical demonstrations and batches of talks-to wit...
When the War broke out in 1914 Modigliani coughed too much to be drafted. He stayed all night in the cafes, sketching for drinks, arguing passionately and with great wit. In one of the cafes he met the Polish poet Zborowski who saw that he was dying. Zborowski tried to sell some of Modigliani's canvases. But no one wanted them, so he sold a trunk full of his own clothes and took the painter to Provence for his health. He improved slightly but once back in Paris he drank again, became so undermined that when an unusual cold...
...distort human anatomy.* Others admit the distortion but defend it by saying that the Egyptians distorted, as did El Greco, the Italian primitives. The merits of Modigliani, they add, are many: his color is finely schematic; his line is sensitive and delineates the sitter's character with wit and insight; his best canvases show the feeling of a real primitive; he is akin to the Siennese, a true Italian...