Old card game with forfeits / WED 9-29-10 / Implement in Millet painting / 1935 Marx Brothers romp / 1940 Crosby/Lamour/Hope film first travel series

Constructor: Charles Gersch

Relative difficulty: Eeeeeasy

THEME: Uh ... movies? 7 movies? Double features + a Marx Bros. movie? — DESCRIPTION


Word of the Day: LOO (55D: Old card game with forfeits) —

Lanterloo, also known as Loo, is a 17th-century trick taking game of the Trump family of which many varieties are recorded. It belongs to a sprawling line of card games whose more intelligent members include Nap, Euchre, Rams, Mao, Hombre, and Spoil Five. It is considered a modification of the game of "All Fours", another English game possibly of Dutch origin, in which the players replenish their hands after each round by drawing each fresh new card from the pack. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was over before it started. Fastest Wednesday puzzle ever by 20 seconds (3:20). Normally I'd be thrilled, but instead I feel like I got away with something. I cannot take pride in this accomplishment—the puzzle simply did not put up any sort of fight. Further, there is no theme. Just a lot of movies. 100 theme squares (impressive!), but only a very thin unifying principle. Nitpick of the day: don't like when theme answers decide some answers will keep the "THE" and others will just do away with it—so THE COLOR OF MONEY, but LAST PICTURE SHOW. Bah. I wish these movies had Something in common, and that HORTON HEARS A WHO was not among them (more famous as book than film). Other than the above, I have no idea what to say about this one. The rest of the puzzle barely registers; there's just not a lot of room left to do anything.

Theme answers:

• 14A: 2003 Sandler/Nicholson comedy ("ANGER MANAGEMENT")
  
• 17A: 1940 Crosby/Lamour/Hope film that was the first in the "travel" series ("ROAD TO SINGAPORE")
  
• 37A: 1971 film that was Cybill Shepherd's debut, with "The" ("LAST PICTURE SHOW")
  
• 41A: 1954 Elia Kazan Oscar winner ("ON THE WATERFRONT")
  
• 59A: 2008 film derived from Dr. Seuss ("HORTON HEARS A WHO")
  
• 62A: 1986 film for which Paul Newman won his only Oscar ("THE COLOR OF MONEY")
  
• 7D: 1935 Marx Brothers romp ("A NIGHT AT THE OPERA")
  

One of the few places that I got slowed down was at 25D: Setting for candlelit romance (BATH). Needed every cross, and didn't even notice what the answer was until I was done and perusing the grid. Answer may as well have been BEDROOM. "Candlelit" is a word that goes with "dinner." Certain people have bathed, with others, by candlelight, but I don't think of it as particularly conventional—any more than having sex, er, "romance," anywhere by candlelight. Other small hitches included: starting out 7D with "ANIMAL CRACK ... oh, dang"; mistaking one crosswordesey word (AGRA) for another (AGAR=>33A: Gelatinous ingredient in desserts); never having heard of LOO, the game; and being certain that HOOCH could not possibly, in a million years, have a "T" in it—I was wrong, it seems (45D: The sauce=>HOOTCH). Everywhere I'm looking, HOOTCH is the "Variant" spelling ... of one thing I'm certain: the dog spells it "HOOCH":



Bullets:

• 6D: Mideast city whose name, coincidentally, is an anagram of ARABS (BASRA) — speaking of Iraqi anagrams, there is an furniture/appliance store in town called OLUM'S, which anagrams to: MOSUL.
  
• 12D: Bankrupt company in 2001-02 news (ENRON) — that doesn't anagram to anything that I can see. "NO, REN!"
  
• 60D: Implement in a Millet painting (HOE) — Pretty sure I posted this (or a) Millet painting very recently, featuring the man with the HOE. So my retention of new crossword info is not, as it sometimes seems, at zero. Good to know.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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