Cinenym

Hollywood has coined and adapted words (It, Oomph) to illustrate some of its byproducts, but until lately it had never found a suitable synonym for its basic commodity, which is not movies, not stars, not the California sun, but a souped-up state of mind accompanied by delusions of grandeur and prestige. Such a word has now gained currency in Hollywood: izzat (pronounced iz-zat).

To receive several long-distance telephone calls (via lackey holding portable phone) while lunching at Hollywood's Brown Derby is to acquire izzat. To work for a mere $1,000 a week after once earning $2,000 is to lose izzat. Film folk of superior izzat, putting in a phone call to an inferior, wait studiously until the inferior is on the wire before deigning to pick up the telephone receiver. Peter the Hermit, who struts along Hollywood Boulevard in his bare feet, is short on cash but long on izzat.

The word izzat was borrowed from the Hindus and Persians, who swiped it from the Arabic. In Arabic, izzat (freely translated) means: the most utterly glorious magnificence.

CURRENT & CHOICE

Unfinished Business (Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Preston Foster, Eugene Pallette; TIME, Sept. 15).

The Little Foxes (Bette Davis, Patricia Collinge, Teresa Wright, Dan Duryea; TIME, Sept. 1).

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Robert Montgomery, James Gleason, Claude Rains, Evelyn Keyes; TIME, Aug. 25).

Sergeant York (Gary Cooper, Joan Leslie, Margaret Wycherly, Walter Brennan; TIME, Aug. 4).

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