pot boiler

plural pot boilers · alternative potboiler · alternative pot-boiler

1. derogatoryfigurativelymildlyA creative work of low quality (book, art, etc.), produced merely to earn a living or for profit, as opposed to serious creative expression.

   Arists and novelists of a certain stamp joke about ‘pot-boilers’, the name facetiously given to hasty, worthless pictures and books[…]

   [1864 August 27, Saturday Review

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   No man is a success in business unless he loves his work. The picture the artist paints for love is his greatest work. The pot-boiler is always something to live down.

   1925, Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and how to play it

   A limp, sudsy adaptation of James Hadley Chase’s 1945 novel “Eve” (a potboiler that Joseph Losey once spun into a Jeanne Moreau vehicle of the same name), “Eva” begins with an engaging sequence that instantly sets the tone by subverting its own beauty.

   2018 February 18, David Ehrlich, “‘Eva’ Review: Not Even Isabelle Huppert Playing an Irritated Prostitute Can Save this Limp Melodrama”, in IndieWire

2. archaeologyA stone used to transfer heat from a fire into a vessel of water, so as to heat the contents.