Word: melodrama
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...rebel as an example to the townspeople. But for the parson they are seeking (Victor Jory) they mistake a godless scamp (Evans) who is drinking tea with the parson's wife (Marsha Hunt). The scamp, however, insists on carrying out the imposture, and in the gaudiest traditions of melodrama has his neck in the noose when deliverance comes...
...early Hitchcock proud-ingenious twists and turns of plot, subtle detail, full-bodied bit characters, atmospheric backgrounds that become an intrinsic part of the story, a deft commingling of the sinister with the ludicrous, the casual with the bizarre. But the central characters are not mere pawns in a melodrama; they are motivated people who speak grown-up dialogue and feel contagious emotions. The film's most original touch: a unique musical sound track using only a hauntingly twanging zither* which speaks more tellingly than a full symphony orchestra...
...Good melodrama, like good farce, has its nonrealistic rules; it lowers actuality to heighten effect. The Man violates the rules. Once criminality is portrayed as a kind of malignant disease, it is hardly better than cancer as a theme for entertainment...
...desperation, Frankie fastens on her brother and his fiancee, feels that they can share their love with her and take her along on their honeymoon. Foiled, she runs away for a night-a night of melodrama when Berenice's foster brother is fleeing from a mob and little John Henry is stricken with meningitis. At the end, the boy and the brother are dead, and Berenice is genuinely bereft. But Frankie, having turned the corner into adolescence, is wonderfully and callously lighthearted...
...suffers after a while from being so much less a play than a mere picture of people. It would make an ideal long one-acter. As it stands, the second act repeats the mood of the first with somewhat diminished success, and the choppy third act resorts to melodrama with no success...