Word: melodrama
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Later, the potholes in the plot tend to become troublesome, particularly in Bates's dealings with an oversexed landlady who helps him to conceal a corpse. But Director Clive Donner (The Guest, Genevieve) maneuvers between black comedy and melodrama with absorbing skill. Maintaining a light, steady touch on the story line, he deploys his camera for a series of witty asides, mocking views of upper-crust life as it is temptingly reproduced in the advertising on the lid of a cookie tin. And one ripe interlude at a hunt ball finds all the horsiest young socialites in full...
...Ceremony is a long-winded melodrama that can't decide which way to blow. Produced and directed by its star, Laurence Harvey, this film about a killer's escape from prison in Tangiers deplores the death penalty, sadistic bureaucrats, and nine out of ten cops. It adores condemned criminals and closeups. But whenever the camera can wrench itself away from Harvey's grab-bag morality and his own vulpine profile, the supporting actors prove their worth. As Harvey's brother, Robert Walker gives the kind of performance that starts fan clubs springing up, and Girl Friend...
...solid theme, it is that the physical shape of a loved object-in this case, Fiddlersburg-is important, that its loss is irrevocable, and that the spirit cannot make do without the flesh. In an understanding of this lies one of the differences between tragedy and sentimental melodrama...
...race prejudice of the whites that it unconsciously adopts the race prejudice of the Negroes. In The Cool World, all Negroes are innocent, even when they are guilty; all whites are wrong, especially when they are right. Furthermore, the moviemakers too often splice sociology with sensation, documentary with melodrama. And finally, the cinematography is inexcusably sloppy-U.S. audiences, wise in the ways of the hand-held camera, are no longer likely to confuse the absence of art with the presence of truth. Still and all, The Cool World has an impact and a fascination. Who will not remember...
...comparison. And in a second act where everyone--Bramhall, David Rittenhouse (Antony), Edwin Holstein (Octavius), and Thomas Weisbuch (Cassius)--is playing at fever pitch, where a ghost puts in an appearance, and where the prodigious battle scene takes up fully ten minutes, the play degenerates into a second-rate melodrama. The giggles heard during what should have been the most exciting moments of the second act ought to warn the cast to slow down and let this Caesar live...