Ajustm* (for Adjustm*)

"What's the use, Ralph?" moans George Haverstick (Jim Hutton) in the 1962 film Period of Adjustment. "You heard her. We're opposite types." George is newly married and things aren't getting off to a very good start. "Son, any two people are opposite types," replies his buddy Ralph Baitz, breezily played by Tony Franciosa. "Especially a woman." (A wee bit ungrammatical, I suppose, but so true!) At any rate, it doesn't take very long to adjust to this wonderful period piece, an offbeat marriage of comedy and tragedy based on a play by none other than Tennessee Williams. Williams wrote the deceptively ditzy domestic farce after a newspaper columnist complained that he dwelt upon the darker side of humanity too much. George is tall, light, and handsome, but also macho and jobless, plus he's got a slight tremor in his hands, all of which adds up to a bad case of post-wedding jitters, if you catch my drift. Jane Fonda plays Isabel, the blushing bride with a bit of buyer's remorse—high-pitched, hysterical, and sexpot-hot. I was also impressed with Lois Nettleton (not as well known as, but very reminiscent of, Joanne Woodward, and married to Jean Shepherd in real life) as Ralph's wife, Dorothea. There were six examples of today's typo in OhioLINK, and 174 in WorldCat.

(Theatrical poster for the film Period of Adjustment, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid