Word: dismally
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Clicking Busily. In the dismal, 14-story Oikwan (Love-thy-Fellowman) Hotel, white-jacketed room boys scurried about posting newer and bigger rates. Tenants were handed their revised bills once, and sometimes twice, each day. On the tenth floor of the Oikwan were the U.S. diplomats, while on the sixth were the Russians. In between were representatives of the French, British, Dutch and Burmese governments. Said one diplomat over an Oikwan Martini: "This is where the third world war is starting...
...these skaters, perhaps Carman more than any other man brought on the Crimson's recent success. During the team's dismal early season, Coach John Chase was shifting from lineup to lineup in hopes of coming up with the right combination. He found the answer in the January Dartmouth game when he shifted high scorer Carman from wing to reinforce the porous defense...
Robert Cummings and Eagle-Lion Films have hammered together a ramshackle little comedy that is partly funny and mostly dismal. Almost everything in "Let's Live A Little" worthy of a laugh has been filched from another picture or another era. In a night-club scene, Cummings shamelessly repeats the Groucho Marx classic: "If we dance any closer, I'll be in back of you." He makes liberal use of several Buster Keaton slapstick techniques, such as the hurling of moist, gooey materials, and has exhumed the standard character of the jittery businessman...
Perhaps the finest point of "Grand Illusion" is the way in which it captures that nebulous quality called "atmosphere." The Frenchmen speak French, the Germans speak German, and the Englishmen speak English; the landscape and the dismal PW camps couldn't be more authentic, and the snatches of old songs ring absolutely true. There are no heroes and no villains-only individuals caught in the hopeless drama of their generation and accepting their roles quite philosophically...
...nationalism. These days Communism is in an internationalist mood and the claims of the Russian propagandists are widely pushed abroad. The purpose may be to convince prospective foreign proselytes that Russia, through the years, has been a source of scientific light and not (as was generally the case) a dismal swamp of scientific darkness. From this premise it is easy to argue that the U.S.S.R. is still a source of scientific light, and thus a sort of shrine of wisdom for the world...