Glossary of slang used in reviewing silent movie melodrama

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Melodrama films captivate the audience by weaving narratives that evoke intense emotions. These films primarily focus on family dynamics, centering around characters who face adversity and exploring themes of duty and love. The melodramatic format portrays characters navigating their challenges with unwavering determination, selfless acts, and bravery. Movie critics and theater owners often use the certain expressions to describe the movies they are reviewing or showing. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

In crafting an article for a particular silent film WP:MOSFILM recommends a section titled Critical reception. That section consists of movie critiques by professional critics and direct quotes from audience members.

This listing is a general glossary of slang terms commonly used by silent movie movie critics, theater owners, and film fans to describe the melodramatic films they are reviewing or screening. This glossary offers a fast reference to the slang used in 1920s movie reviews, as they are quoted verbatim.

C

come to time
  • The expression was used in prizefighting (boxing)
  • Verb - come to time (past participle come to time)
  • (dated) To come forward in order to resume the contest when the interval allowed for rest is over and time is called
  • (idiomatic) to meet expectations.

Example
They Like 'Em Rough,' with Viola Dana. – Comedy-drama in which a husband uses cave man tactics to make his flapper wife come to time.

1922 Exhibitors Herald Movie Review [4]
crack wise
  • To make a sarcastic, flippant, or sardonic comment
  • crack wise (third-person singular simple present cracks wise, present participle cracking wise, simple past and past participle cracked wise)

F

flapper (plural flappers)
young woman, especially when unconventional or without decorum or displaying daring freedom or boldness; now particularly associated with the Jazz Age of the 1920s. A stylish, brash, hedonistic young woman with short skirts & shorter hair

Example
They Like 'Em Rough,' with Viola Dana. – Comedy-drama in which a husband uses cave man tactics to make his flapper wife come to time.

1922 Exhibitors Herald Movie Review [4]

G

gandy dancer
(chiefly US, idiomatic) A railway laborer, especially a member of a crew which carries rails and affixes them to ties.
grindhouse (plural grindhouses)
  • Perhaps from the grinding or cranking motion employed by early projectionists
  • (US film) A low-budget film theater that shows primarily exploitation films

Example
flyers made from San Francisco to Hawaii. It is just a hoak meller that will, for the better part, carry in some of the smaller grindhouses.

1926 Variety Movie Review [5]

H

Heart-Tugging
One's deepest emotions or inner feelings. to tug at one's heartstrings.
Heart-Wrenching
One's deepest emotions or inner feelings. to tug at one's heartstrings.
Highbrow
Intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated, or a cultured or learned person or thing.
Histrionics
Exaggerated, overemotional behavior, especially when calculated to elicit a response; melodramatics
Hokum
(An instance of) excessively contrived, hackneyed, or sentimental material in a film

Example
. . . where Nazimova comes to a house of refuge, not knowing that Sills is there, and is pronounced dying by physicians, but is saved by Sills' prayer. To us who make and sell pictures, this "saved by prayer" situation registers as hokum, but just the same it has a genuine wallop for most of your customers, and consequently this final sequence effectively tops a very good red meat dramatic yarn.

1924 Wid's Movie Review [6]
Hoaky (comparative hoakier, superlative hoakiest, hoak)
(An instance of) excessively contrived, hackneyed, or sentimental material in a film

Example
flyers made from San Francisco to Hawaii. It is just a hoak meller that will, for the better part, carry in some of the smaller grindhouses.

1926 Variety Movie Review [5]
hoity-toity
(uncountable, archaic) Behaviour adopted to demonstrate one's superiority; pretentious or snobbish behaviour; airs and graces.
hotsy-totsy
(slang, usually derogatory) Fancy, sophisticated.

I

idler (plural idlers)
One who idles; one who spends his or her time in inaction. One who idles; a lazy person; a sluggard.

Example
In the park awaiting her train home she meets Forrest Chenoworth, a rich idler, whose money has gotten him into trouble with a lady named Jane.

1920 Wid's Daily Movie Review [7]

M

Mawkish
Excessively or falsely sentimental; showing a sickly excess of sentiment.
Meller
A melodrama.
Mellerdrammer
(derogatory, dated) Pronunciation spelling of melodrama.
Melodrama
A drama abounding in romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical accompaniment only in especially thrilling or pathetic parts.

N

wallop (plural wallops)
  • A heavy blow, punch e.g. he gave him a mighty wallop
  • An emotional impact, psychological force e.g. that film has some serious wallop
  • A thrill, emotionally excited reaction.

Example
. . . where Nazimova comes to a house of refuge, not knowing that Sills is there, and is pronounced dying by physicians, but is saved by Sills' prayer. To us who make and sell pictures, this "saved by prayer" situation registers as hokum, but just the same it has a genuine wallop for most of your customers, and consequently this final sequence effectively tops a very good red meat dramatic yarn.

1924 Wid's Movie Review [6]

O

on the lam
Running away, usually from the police; on the run.

Example
Reviewing the 1928 "The Racket" - Eight January Chicago, racketeers who, for various good reasons, or on the lamb and temporarily going straight in Los Angeles, we're rounded up and induced to work and this crook melodrama.

1928 Motion Picture Classic Movie Review [8]

P

Pathos
The quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions, especially that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity, sorrow, and the like; contagious warmth of feeling, action, or expression; pathetic quality.
Pretentious
Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction

S

Sappy
Excessively sweet, emotional, nostalgic; cheesy; mushy.
screaming meemies
(slang) A state of anxiety; the jitters.
scofflaw
  • (US) One who habitually violates minor laws or fails to answer trivial court summonses (such as parking tickets)
  • scofflaw.
Sentiment or Sentimental
Feelings, especially tender feelings, as apart from reason or judgment, or of a weak or foolish kind

T

Tearjerker
An emotionally charged film, novel, song, opera, television episode, etc., usually with one or more sad passages or ending, so termed because it suggests one is likely to cry during its performance

W

Waster
Someone or something that wastes; someone who squanders or spends extravagantly.

Example
In the park awaiting her train home she meets Forrest Chenoworth, a rich idler, whose money has gotten him into trouble with a lady named Jane. . . The alderman's son, a waster, is acquainted with Jane

1920 Wid's Daily Movie Review [7]
Weepie
A sad or sentimental film, often portraying troubled romance, designed to elicit a tearful emotional response from its audience

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<i>Is Love Everything?</i> 1924 film directed by Christy Cabanne

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<i>The Spirit of the USA</i> 1924 film

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Life's Greatest Game is a 1924 American silent melodrama directed by Emory Johnson. FBO released the film in October 1924. The film's "All-Star" cast included Johnnie Walker, Tom Santschi, Jane Thomas, David Kirby, and Gertrude Olmstead. Emilie Johnson, Johnson's mother, wrote both the story and screenplay. She was inspired by the 1919 World Series Black Sox Scandal scandal. Life's Greatest Game was the sixth film in Johnson's eight-picture contract with FBO.

<i>The Non-Stop Flight</i> 1926 film

The Non-Stop Flight is a 1926 American silent melodrama directed by Emory Johnson. FBO released the film in March 1926. The film's "All-Star" cast included Knute Erickson and Marcella Daly. Emilie Johnson, Johnson's mother, wrote both the story and screenplay. The Non-Stop Flight was the eighth and final film in Johnson's eight-picture contract with FBO.

References

  1. Brooks, P. (1995). The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess. Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-06553-4 . Retrieved 14 July 2024.
  2. Costello, Robert B., ed. (1991). Random House Webster's College Dictionary. New York: Random House. p. 845. ISBN   978-0-679-40110-0.
  3. Stevenson, Angus; Lindberg, Christine A., eds. (2010). New Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 1091. ISBN   978-0-19-539288-3.
  4. 1 2 "Metro-They Like "Em Rough"". Exhibitors Herald. Chicago, Exhibitors Herald. 5 August 1922. p. 487. Archived from the original on 24 March 2014. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
  5. 1 2 "NON-STOP FLIGHT". Variety. 7 July 1926. p. 17. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
  6. 1 2 "NAZIMOVA AND MILTON SILLS in Madonna of the Streets". Wid's. Hollywood : Wid's Weekly. 25 December 1924. p. 191. Archived from the original on 15 August 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2024. Ordinary Production Given to Very Convenient Melodrama
  7. 1 2 "Gladys Leslie in Vitagraph's "THE MIDNIGHT BRIDE"". Wid's Daily. New York, Wid's Films and Film Folks, Inc. 1 February 1920. p. 148. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
  8. Thorpe, Dunham (1 December 1928). "Muttling "The Racket" - the underworld has sat to silence this film fusillade trained on it". Motion Picture Classic. New York: New York, Motion Picture Publications, Inc. p. 63. Retrieved 22 July 2024.

Sources