Sentence:  Every experienced playwright, every manager, every stage director, every intelligent actor who has passed his novitiate, knows of things that always have received a certain definite response. Many of these have been formulated. In the sad, glad days of prosperous melodrama they were known as "sure-fire <WSD>hokum</WSD>." [...] The "sure-fire <WSD>hokum</WSD>" of murderous melodrama encompassed, in a crudely elemental form it is true, nearly all the essentials of success in dramatic situaion, most of the values that make popular favor for a play. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  (An instance of) excessively contrived, hackneyed, or sentimental material in a film, television programme, theater production, etc.