Word: backdrop
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...worrying about the continued existence of West Berlin: it stands as a showcase outpost of freedom-a glowing symbol, 100 miles inside the Iron Curtain, of successful allied policy and capitalist prosperity, a haven for thousands upon thousands of East German refugees in flight from the drab, despondent backdrop of Communist East Germany. West Berlin's symbolism is repeated on a much larger scale in Konrad Adenauer's German Federal Republic. To erase Western strength in Berlin would be a sure step toward weakening West Germany, and the Russians have never ceased trying to punch a hole...
...shooed and advised, but never chaperoned, by a sophisticated marchesa. Living in a Florentine convent, they talk, dream, paint, write, compose, writhe in the agonies of their love affairs, while the sisters of the convent go calmly about their business and the great art of Florence forms a soothing backdrop. Author VanOrden's plot seems hardly worth the time. What is best about her flashingly literate book is the handsomely sketched Florentine setting, against which the bright chatter of her young Americans seems like a volatile gas, dissipated before the old city is even aware of its presence...
...Diego, the opposition candidate, an entirely different sort of man, had opened an entirely different sort of campaign. William Fife Knowland came not to be liked but to demand respect. Outside San Diego's Russ Auditorium, big, dead-serious Bill Knowland seemed incongruous against the stock California political backdrop-a marimba band, Japanese girls, a flame swallower in vaquero costume. Knowland moved carefully among some 300 people, here pausing for a solemn word, there posing with a tight grin for a photograph, all the while working toward the speaker's platform. Once he got there, Knowland wasted little...
...crumblin' an' all that. 'Ere's John Mills, 'e's a British corporal an' 'e's tryin' to fight a war in France, an' all 'e's got to shoot at is a bloomin' painted backdrop. 'E heventually walks to the beach, since 'e's walked everywhere else there is, an' 'e lies down for a nap while the Stukas bomb all the other blokes...
...scheduled time, in the U.S. Pavilion theater, the curtain rose on the Ballet Theatre. The first work on the bill was Theme and Variations, but variations predominated: girls in Sylphides tutus and men in tights, which had just arrived from New York, leaped and twirled against a backdrop from Gala Performance...