Word: melodrama
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...than 800 paintings in his 37 years, sold only two, and lived on handouts from his brother. But because the Hollywood story builds relentlessly to Van Gogh's ear-slicing for its climax. Lust for Life falls midway between being a first-rate art film and high-pitched melodrama...
Based on Norman Brooks's unsuccessful 1954 Broadway play, Fragile Fox, the film has raised the hackles of the Defense Department, which considers it "derogatory to Army leadership during combat." A more serious charge is that the picture spends more time making melodrama than making sense. Even in its fighting, the dice are curiously loaded: the G.I.s are shown as tattered scarecrows on the edge of exhaustion in contrast to the spit-and-polish Nazis, who wear uniforms more appropriate to the parade ground than to combat. A similar imbalance flaws the plot. Smithers, though he has the courage...
...difficult drama to produce: it is long, the requirements on the actors in interpretation are tremendous, and the title of this musty classic does not draw at the box-office. Moreover, it is a three-ring circus of dramatic forms--a curious medley of tragedy, farce, melodrama, satire and philosophy--which presents an almost insurmountable problem of style and pacing for the director...
...demonstration that Faust is as suited to the stage as to the bookshelf, Frank has treated the play as a "mystery," rather than as a tragedy or philosophical melodrama. For the theatre, it is difficult to find fault with his judgment...
...afraid of this good and harmless man. It is all a boring mystery to the two boys until the wife's brother arrives, and in a night of violence, in which the prodigal wrecks all the furniture in the house, they piece together the elements of a painful melodrama...