Appearance
1964Year Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, a close adviser of President Johnson, is himself the object of a burgeoning fan club. Bumper stickers appeared this week blaring in bright green letters: “
ROBERT McNAMARA — For the Leader of the Land...Join the McNAMARA Band” McNamara's Band
1928Year Further evidence of the potentialities of the talking film was offered last night by Warner Brothers, when they launched at Warners' Theatre the Vitaphoned version of George M. Cohan's stage comedy. "The Home Towners." Having been produced with a sense of restraint and an intelligent conception of the coupling of the cinematic values with the lines, it provided an agreeable entertainment. It has, it is true, mechanical defects, for sometimes the voices were a trifle explosive and on other occasions they were not a little too weak. But it was plain that with experience the players will learn to control their voices, or, perhaps the directors will eventually learn more about the control of sound.It is perhaps the first feature-length production, in which there is no singing, that actually holds the interest through the story. It has its quota of amusement as well as suspense, and because several of the players were accustomed to the stage, they played their parts without being intimidated by the fact that microphones were in the offing.This Vitaphoned conception of "The Home Towners" is a great stride in the right direction for talking films, and one of the principal reasons is the fact that the adapters have used common sense in what changes they made in the play. They give certain scenic additions with sound, but these episodes enhance the worth of the production. A conversation is carried on in an automobile, and it is an integral part of the story. There are other sections that take place aboard a train. In the beginning the camera is switched from a compartment on board the train to a flash of the train itself as it speeds on through the darkness.The director is a little too fond of jangling telephone bells and a buzzer that sounds abnormally loud, but, even so, it is not irritating. However, if these sounds were more subdued, it would add to the general realistic idea of the picture. There are other sounds that strike one as being artificial, even though they undoubtedly are obtained from the real thing. There are also periods of silence when one expects to hear a buzz or rustle.Richard Bennett, who appears as "Vic" Arnold, a rôle acted on the stage by William Elliott
Robert McWade, who portrays the same character he did before the footlights, and Robert Edeson, as Mr. Calhoun, do a great deal to cause one to take this feature more seriously than any others. Mr. McWade was given to shouting on the stage, and his voice is even more stentorian in this shadow translation. He is, however, thoroughly amusing as the fault-finding and suspicious South Bend man who causes all the trouble.Mr. Bennett grasps better than any of the other players what is wanted in this talking picture, for his intonation is most pleasing and his diction invariably clear.Mr. Edeson has a minor rôle, that of the publican whose daughter is to marry "Vic" Arnold, but he reveals that in spite of his long absence from the stage he has not forgotten that words must be accompanied by suitable actions and expressions. Gladys Brockwell, a screen actress, figures as Mrs. Bancroft, and she does quite well with this character.Doris Kenyon is charming as Beth Calhoun, the girl who is engaged to "Vic" Arnold, but much more was to have been expected from the vocal side of her performance.This comedy, it may be remembered, is concerned with the disappointment of the elderly P. H. Bancroft of South Bend, when he discovers that this old friend "Vic" Arnold is engaged to marry a girl less than half his age. Bancroft, who eventually is alluded to as a man with a "Main Street mind," suspects in turn the brother, the husband and even the mother of Arnold's bride-to-be of conspiring to get money from Arnold. He hears that old Calhoun has invented a bottle washer and that Arnold has bought 51 per cent, of the stock for $200,000. Arnold tells him that Beth Arnold's brother Wally is now earning $15,000 a year in his (Arnold's) brokerage concern, and that Arnold expects to make Wally a member of his firm.From Wally, to Bancroft's surprise, he learns that this young man has been approached by another firm. Bancroft, an overbearing personality, forms his own conclusions and "Vic" Arnold resents his friend's insulting Beth. Bancroft eventually antagonizes the Calhoun family, and in the end the man from South Bend wilts under a tirade from Wally. Bancroft has spoken of brigands and bandits, but he subsequently discovers that the invention was worth while, that Wally really did have an offer from a rival broker and that Beth really loves Arnold. THE SCREEN
2000Year Richard Constant is named chief executive at Gavin Anderson & Co, succeeding Gavin Anderson, who remains chairman
Robert Mead, president and chief executive of New York office, is named to new post of president of agency, and Eugene Golembeski, chief financial officer, is named to new post of chief operating officer; Brian Booker is named to post of president and chief creative officer for advertising at Barkley Evergreen & Partners, succeeding David Farmer, who resigned; Doria Steedman, executive vice president and director for creative development at Partnership for a Drug-Free America, is named to new position of vice chairwoman; Jan Sneed is named senior vice president and director for corporate affairs at Grey Advertising, succeeding Owen Dougherty, who resigned to join J Walter Thompson as executive vice president and director for corporate communications (S) People
2005Year In Between False Comforts Talk to the Land Andrew Kreps 558 West 21st Street, Chelsea Through tomorrow Is there art after Mom? Yes. Robert Melee's fourth solo show at this gallery carries on without the masochistic parent whose drag-queen presence has sensationalized so much of his multimedia art. The black, white and gray environment may constitute going cold turkey, but the artist's gleefully perverse conflations of modern art and suburban life continue. The abject and the abstract keep close company in mannequins whose frozen poses of submission or dominance are so heavily doused in paint that they have a geological mass, and in rock-solid drapes whose contrasting grays conjure up the wan tones of old family snapshots or a Jackson Pollock drip painting blurred by Gerhard Richter. The Op-Art Expressionism is completed with a tawdry parquet floor of marbleized paint and fake wood and one of the artist's mosaiclike bottle-cap paintings -- modular, black and relatively pure. Art in Review
Robert Melee
1976Year MOUNT TABOR, Ark., May 4—
Robert Melton believes in God. Not in some vague supernatural force approached with euphemism and uncertainty but in a personal being whom he addresses every day for support and guidance. Southern Baptist Expansion Brings Increased Diversity
2005Year Jon S Corzine says goodbye to colleagues in US Senate, which he is leaving to become governor of New Jersey
Robert Menendez will serve out remaining year of Corzine's term and will have to gear up to defend his seat in November 2006; photo (M) In Speech to Senate, Corzine Bids a 'Bittersweet' Farewell