Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Ben Zimmer, was a pleasure. I started with 1-A, four letters, “It hits a mark” and just kept going. I was flummoxed just once, with 10-A, three letters, “12, another way” and 11-D, eight letters, “Symbol of cinema sci-fi resistance.” My utter lack of familiarity with the answer emerging for 11-D kept me from seeing the obvious answer for 10-A. But not forever.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, five letters, “Fifth in her family with an Oscar.” I didn’t know there are five of them.

4-D, four letters, “‘I drag my ___ around with me’: Orson Welles.” That’s what I call self-knowledge.

14-A, five letters, “Ready for camping.” Tricky parsing.

20-D, ten letters, “News freeze.” A little awkward but fun.

21-A, three letters, “Tony’s Brit partner for ‘Body in Soul’ on Duets II (2011).” The puzzle is a little heavy on proper names (four so far in my picks), but they’re all gettable. “Brit” seems unnecessary here. And the song’s proper name is “Body and Soul.”

25-D, ten letters, “Approve advancement?” KICKUPSTAIRS doesn’t fit. Nice misdirection.

31-A, thirteen letters, “Pays it forward.” From a staircase of three thirteen-letter answers.

31-D, eight letters, “Prototypical mad scientist.” And how.

32-A, thirteen letters, “Becoming chilly.” It feels like 37°F this morning. And I just learned that you can get the degree sign on a Mac with Shift-Option-8 (instead of going to Edit-Emoji & Symbols.

34-A, three letters, “WWII reenactment wear.” I learned more.

43-A, nine letters, “21-Tony winner (two each for Cabaret and Fiddler).” The numbers aren’t much help for solving, but they do honor the person whose name is the answer.

48-A, three letters, “‘Get me?’” The answer is a bit startling.

46-D, three letters, “Elliptical building.” Clever.

52-A, four letters, “Bass line.” Of course I thought of music first.

My favorite in this puzzle: 28-A, thirteen letters, “Flats, for instance.” Spoiler alert: I thought of this cartoon.

No spoilers aside from that one. The answers are in the comments.