Word: melodrama
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...Anderson for fit words that his people talk like stilted schoolmasters as well as windy poets : a businessman, for example, refers to gangsters as "banditti." Worst of all, Anderson cannot deal sharply with ideas. The conflict of ideas in Key Largo becomes swamped by emotionalism, ends as a philosophical melodrama where disillusionment is made the villain and idealism the hero...
Hollywood glorified the era with miles of film, broadcast the U. S. gangster to the world: Scarface, Manhattan Melodrama, On Wings of Song. Pulp magazines dedicated to crime inundated the newsstands. "Stick 'em up," little boys screamed at one another, "or I'll blow your guts...
...Error (by Clare Boothe; produced by Richard Aldrich & Richard Myers) breaks the jinx on anti-Nazi plays (five in a row flopped last season) by breaking the mold. Playwright Boothe makes everything Nazi-totsy by shifting her scene to the U. S., turning her tale into a lively mystery melodrama, and peppering it with wisecracks like those in The Women and Kiss the Boys Goodbye...
...delightfully refreshing Cinderella in modern dress, a sophisticated melodrama, and an Information Please short combine to form a strange but highly entertaining bill. Cinderella is Deanna Durbin, of course, in "First Love." She sings as well as ever; she looks as delicious as ever, but above all she is less noisy than before, which is certainly an asset. The picture, original in its angle, frankly follows along the lines of the Cinderella story even to the lost slipper. Only the coach and six is transformed into the Commissioner's car and a large escort of motorcycle police...
...sophisticated melodrama is "Rio", elevated to its position as a far-better-than-usual second feature by the acting of Basil Rathbone; while the dresses that Sigrid Gurie wears might even bring the bald headed sugar daddies back to the front row. Gene Tunney is the star of the Information Please short...