Word: braggarts
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Groucho's jackpot question: "In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Henry V and Merry Wives of Windsor, there appears a cowardly braggart whose good humor and wit have endeared him to millions the world over . . . I want you to identify this genial fellow." Contestants Muriel Stetson of Rivera, Calif, and Arthur LaVove of Los Angeles, teamed together, thought a moment, then answered "Pistol." Wrong, said Groucho. "The correct answer is Falstaff...
Watts: ". . . Obviously Falstaff was intended as the answer, and I think there is considerable doubt that millions 'the world over' ever found Pistol endearing . . . What is a matter of fact is that he is 'a cowardly braggart' and that he does possess 'good humor' and 'some wit,' and certainly appears in all the required plays. So it seems to me the Pistol couple have...
Hampden: "I must judge you wrong in saying a character can appear in a play without making an appearance on stage . . . The question was wrongly put, hence confusing because it included an error. The answer was half right because Pistol is a cowardly braggart. The true answer . . . is that there is no such character. I suggest the show bear the penalty of its error and give the young couple $500 for a correct answer to half the question...
...nose. David Farrar is an ideal match for her as he slogs stupidly through the role of Sir Guy of Devon, a Crusader even more preposterous than the Crusades themselves. Genghis Khan, one of the great leaders and tacticians of history, is portrayed as a mean, irritable, slow-witted braggart who doesn't talk too good...
Playwright Kelly's famous portrait of a braggart is still an amusing one. If The Show-Off seems protracted now, it seemed already diluted in 1924, for in an earlier and more brilliant form it was a vaudeville sketch. But its best bits are among the funniest of all tilting at windbags. The strutting $32.50-a-week clerk, who is neither cowed by the law he flouts nor squelched by the mother-in-law he infuriates, is most alive when most farcical. Lee Tracy plays him with noisy but un-brutal gusto, making him far more ham than horror...