Word: melodrama
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When a strong cool blast of it (Ella Raines) wakes him up and threatens to make a man of him, everyone except Harry realizes that Sister Lettie's feelings about him exceed the sisterly. From there on the story is ever-crueler melodrama, culminating in a tacked-on ending which the audience is requested not to tell-presumably on the assumption that everybody has the right to feel sold...
Often implausible and clumsy, Jealousy includes some good melodrama and Intelligent cinema. The refugee is well conceived and extremely well played by Nils Asther. Even better is his kindly fellow refugee (Hugo Haas). The domestic quarrels and crises are venomous and painful, well beyond Hollywood's normal handling of such unpleasantness. Karen Morley, who has not made a picture in years, is still one of the most attractive and individual cinemactresses...
...melodrama about a dangerous occupation such as minesweeping, test piloting, logging. It begins with a fight, has the hero's pal killed in the second reel to prove the job is really dangerous, ends with a chase and the happy mating of the hero. No. 2 is a musical. It opens with boy meeting girl, ends with boy getting girl and playing a cantata in Carnegie Hall...
...times of the late Texas Guinan (most famous of nightclub hostesses), whose battle cry ("Hello, sucker!") might be carved on a monument to the 1920's. Incendiary Blonde is not such a monument. It is a brassy synthesis of color, song and dance, spattered with laughs, sniffles and melodrama, and brought to life chiefly by vigorous, charming Betty Hutton. In its own way, it is a rather likable show...
Unfortunately, the buildups are sometimes too good. The film might be more successful as comedy if it were less painstakingly skillful in creating moments of suspense. As it is, the production is too tricky to be effective either as farce or melodrama; its sudden changes of mood often convey a feeling that the picture is kidding not itself but the audience...