Word: trite
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...Anglo-Ireland of 1856, when he was born, was an ossified 18th Century society. It was elegant yet genteel; it was ruled by the blistering aristocratic candor and the simple aristocratic naivety; it was naturally irreverent, as aristocratic societies are; it was libertine in word, but preserved the trite, conventional and charming copybook morality of the 18th Century in action. When he died, Shaw was really a hundred years older than his admitted age, as sweet and prim and gentle as anyone out of Goldsmith...
...despite a script which is about as suspenseful as "Little Red Riding Hood." The Victorian setting provides the necessaries for melodrama: a heavily-draped living room, flickering candles, and a swinging chandelier. There are other timeless devices, such as nighttime storm and strange offstage noises which supplement the generally trite plot. Bail Langton's direction would be better appreciated if the play were a strong one. It is correctly slow-paced and would emphasize the tension that must be written in as really good melodrama...
Most critics ignored both De Chirico's sideshow and his rasping taunts, but the influential Italian weekly Europeo struck back: "De Chirico's [new paintings] are dry, trite, and the images toneless . . . It is not enough to wish in words for a renaissance...
That cruel prophecy soon came true. Smart found a job with a bookseller who waxed rich on the profits he made from concoctions such as "Dr. Hooper's Female Pills." Smart became his hack, churning out for him a flow of trite but salable verse and prose. Then Smart's high-strung system collapsed. He took to interpreting literally Christ's "injunction to pray without ceasing"-and pray Smart did, whenever he was moved to do so, whether in public places or in the small hours of the morning, summoning those near him to do likewise...
...through at any cost. But the characters themselves, while uniformly well acted, are unevenly drawn. Some, e.g., the master criminal and the self-pitying bookie, are excellent. But the safecracker who worries about his sick child is pat and overworked, and the important character of the crooked lawyer is trite. And with the death of the hooligan in a Kentucky meadow, his head nuzzled by the horses he longed to see again, Huston gives a hard-bitten film a surprisingly mawkish ending...