Word: melodrama
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Chester catches sight of his destiny in adolescent flashes of intuition. Standing in a tent show before a penny-dreadful melodrama, he feels the actor's hypnotic hold on the crowd, senses that his words too may one day sway and spellbind. Standing, on another day, atop a rain-drenched knoll with his Adventist father and nine of the faithful awaiting the second coming of Christ, he feels his faith oozing away. He turns to the prophets of social revolution, soaks up the teachings of Proudhon, Marx and Bakunin. and becomes a labor organizer. But a violent and bitter...
Despite small virtues. Gently Does It falls sadly short-chiefly by falling between stools. The liveliest scenes-of marital life between Edward and the barmaid-are in plot terms the least in order, while the melodrama is severely rationed. And for a murder play, there is almost no sense of cat and mouse-something particularly needed when, right from the beginning...
...home he left the table too distraught to eat. Edwards' wife berated Misia for upsetting the great man; rather than distress him, Mme. Edwards told her, Misia should become his mistress. Misia was indignant, but Edwards was persistent. For all the world like the heavy in a French melodrama, he lured Thadee Natanson into a disastrous business scheme, then offered to save him in exchange for Misia. The bargain was struck, Misia finally agreed, and after rapid divorces she married Edwards...
...latest on this fall's list is Daphne Rooke's Ratoons. Novelist Rooke (Mittee) takes in the conflict of Zulu against Hindu, Englishman against Boer on a turn-of-the-century sugar plantation, but the drama of racial tensions serves mainly as a backdrop for a melodrama of personal relationships...
...rich combination of high romance and low melodrama, the picture has a fine archaic atmosphere. Examples: the brilliantly Technicolored pageantry of a court dance, a royal game of shuttlecock, Henry VIII riding to the hunt, a contest between French and English wrestling champions at Windsor Castle...