Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, turned out to be far easier than I thought it would be. Lots of fine clues and unexpected answers, and two fairly ridiculous answers. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, four letters, “Intriguing development.” The wording carries a lot of weight.

5-D, six letters, “Swing shifts?” Nicely done.

18-A, ten letters, “What Hemingway got for his WWll reporting.” Something to know that I did not know.

14-A, fourteen letters, “It has its ups and downs.” ROLLERCOASTER comes up, or down, short.

24-A, six letters, “Quick glances.” Easier to see than I expected.

28-D, four letters, “May day nickname.” It’s not a nickname for a day in May. The intersection of 28-D and 40-A is for me the low point of the puzzle.

36-A, fifteen letters, “Synthesizer’s hard rock.” See? Unexpected.

37-D, eight letters, “‘Smells Like a Man, Man’ sloganeer.” Or at least a man of a certain age?

38-D, eight letters, “Somewhat sticky.” I don’t think there’s any redeeming this word.

40-A, five letters, “Sort of gray.” Okay, it’s a word, but still. A change of one letter would make 28-D and 40-A better players in this puzzle.

45-A, six letters, “Where Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress.” Yes, I read lots of seventeenth-century prose in grad school.

50-D, four letters, “Makeup, e.g.” Clever.

My favorite in this puzzle, because it’s just so strange: 55-A, ten letters, “Trouble spots on radar.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.