Word: uncouth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When they first appeared in Germany 500 years ago, one chronicle denounced them as an "uncouth, dirty and barbarous" people who "live like dogs and are expert at thieving and cheating." During the Middle Ages, aristocrats out on a hunt considered them fair game, along with birds and boar. More than 400,000 of them were murdered by the Nazis in the course of the Holocaust that also claimed 6 million Jewish lives. Even today West Germany's gypsies are openly persecuted. Says Grattan Puxon, general secretary of the Roma World Union, an international gypsy organization based in Bern...
...before that happens two other characters appear on the scene. Foster (Michael Kitchen) and Briggs (Terence Rigby) are young, uncouth and vaguely sinister. They are apparently Hirst's factotums about the house, and his bodyguards. They aim insulting remarks at Spooner. While he is slightly intimidated, Spooner holds on like a barnacle, secure in the doggedly smug conviction of his genius despite his worldly failure. In retaliation, the bodyguards immerse Spooner in total darkness by switching off the lights and locking him in the drawing room for the night...
Despite the fact that the screenplay leaves the actors with nowhere to go in their roles, the performances are virtually all first-rate. Especially enjoyable is Peter Falk as the hard-boiled Frisco detective, Sam Diamond, whose uncouth manner provides an entertaining contrast to the cocktailparty elegance of Dick and Dora Charleston, played to perfection by David Niven and Maggie Smith, and the genteel prissiness of James Coco as the corpulent Belgian detective, Milo Perrier. Peter Seller's performance as the continually proverb-coining Sidney Wang is decidedly bland, however, which comes as a surprise and disappointment, since his impersonations...
...haphazard organization of Central Square doesn't preclude original designs--it might even encourage whimsical businessmen. I'm sort of partial to weeds, myself, and the dowdy, uncouth window display at Fashion Junction, where the man-nequins' limbs are out of kilter under synthetic negligees in translucent shades of green and blue, fascinates me, while Corcoran's spacious, well-tended window doesn't interest me. Some charming stores have sprouted between the frowzy ones, too. I like Paul's Shoes because the cobbler printed his sign in slithery black letters. And I'm sorry the miniscule take-out stand...
...view to make it satire instead of a collection of better-and-worse gags. There is nothing in it that could possibly offend the comfortable businessman in from Brookline for a wild evening in the Square. Perhaps the funniest bit is about a youngman who takes his incredibly uncouth date to a fancy French restaurant. Even honest gross-out humor like this (it ends with her throwing up) seems funnier than "mild" political satire. During the Ford routines, for example, we're laughing at a stupid man, any stupid man, and the fact that he's President of the United...