I don't find it melodramatic, just hilarious.

Anyway, trite melodrama, done right, can be as satisfying as any other method - emotionally if not intellectually.

Last night I watched the great Shirley Temple in "The Littlest Rebel" (1935), an unbelievably sentimental tale of the American Civil War: Lincoln was in it too, with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and how can you beat that combination?

What made it work was everything *except* a nonexistent commitment to gritty realism. Just like "The Handsome Cabin Boy."