Word: manically
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...counting, no one seems to have noticed the stubborn absence of humor or the manic mugging by the star, Louis de Funès, whose exertions make Jerry Lewis look, by comparison, like Alfred Lunt. De Funès likes to pop his eyes out, fast and wide, like two billiard balls bouncing off the side cushion. He is ever choleric, his veins on the point of rupture, like a man who has been mud-splattered by the bus he just missed...
...Silver Bears deals in a baser metal, but it is just as entertaining and instructive as the first novel. Although names and places have been somewhat altered, the plot is built on the manic-depressive 1968 fluctuations in the price of silver that made millions for a few and skinned thousands who were convinced that silver had nowhere...
...Benson, Driscoll, DruMarkle and Peter Kovner, race hysterically around the stage in baggy, decorated long johns. The skits are shorter and faster paced than the ones in Beyond Words, and the humor here is largely verbal. The performers in the second half of the show seem possessed by a manic energy and a keen sense of the absurdity potential in any situation. The high point of the entire performance is Markle's brilliant parody of Shirley Temple singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop...
...trouble with this movie, as with Simon Gray's original play, is that Butley's abrasive quips remain an impregnable line of defense. His manic sense of humor is the means he uses to make things matter not quite so much. His jokes stop him short of anything really serious, and they stop the movie as well...
...actors can't be blamed for any of the show's weaknesses. Their performances are uniformly good despite the limited material the script affords them. Steve Sweet, as the depressive drummer, and James Howard Lawrence, as his manic, piano-playing opposite, are particularly fine...