Word: yarns
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...Thompson work his con for so long? "He was a genius at his craft," says Robert Steigmann, Champaign County assistant state's attorney. "He had the ability to snow anybody." Ruddy-faced, ingratiating and gregarious, Thompson had the grifter's gift for spinning a convincing yarn. His face stamped with Main Street openness, Thompson never carried a fake I.D. "I don't imagine I've been asked for identification over half a dozen times," he says. Countless WANTED flyers distributed around the country gave rough descriptions...
Perhaps Bronson vehicle and quality are no longer a contradiction in terms. This summer's Breakout, a diverting prisonbreak yarn, showed the usually saturnine star cracking jokes, playing big, generally and infectiously enjoying himself. In Hard Times, Bronson's role is closer to his customary image: the callous, uncommunicative loner. When this sort of projection does not work (The Stone Killer, Death Wish), Bronson is a Goliath who could be toppled by leprechauns. This time, however, the stolid performer manages to achieve an authentic, scruffy street dignity...
...Boat is an exciting adventure yarn, full of battle tension and long bouts of boredom on long patrols. But as a novel, its characters are considerably less alive than the technology that en cases them. Even at an incredible 900 rivet-popping feet beneath the Atlantic, there is the uneasy feeling of bobbing rudderless on the surface...
When special effects don't interrupt and he doesn't have to wrestle our attention from the stagehands as they clear up the debris from the previous scene, Robert Larsen can demonstrate his ability, Peer, based on a folk hero, is an yarn-spinner and boaster, and Larsen is an excellent story-teller. From the opening scene, with Peer's fib of riding astride a reindeer-buck. Larsen reveals astounding acrobatic ability, vocal control, and stage presence, lending greater weight to Ibsen's lyrical verse. His versatility becomes apparent as his mood and expression age with Peer, who bears...
...State. The council is a satiric conceit; it is also a social prophecy that antedates Kafka's The Trial by 15 years and the CIA by two generations. Syme's story rings with the sonorities of the Book of Job. It is also a splendid detective yarn...