DE LUXE THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 5

DE LUXE THEATRE.

"Alcatraz Island."

"Alcatraz Island," a Warner Bros, melodrama, commences on Friday at the De Luxe Theatre. It is said that the story is not merely one of life behind the stone walls of the Pacificwashed prison. There is plenty of action on the mainland, both before.and after the protagonist—one Gat Brady, played by John Litel —is confined for income-tax evasion. The'story, itself deals with a powerful racketeer (John Litel), who is forced to remove his daughter (Mary Maguire), from an exclusive boarding school, and take her to live with him., When he is imprisoned for income-tax evasion, his one wish is to get out as soon as his term is up to rejoin his daughter, now in love with a district attorney (Gordon Oliver), and his own sweetheart (Ann Sheridan). How this desire is thwarted time and again by a former mobman seeking revenge takes the audience through- the various prisons in the story, thus forming as powerful a background as has been seen in a long while. The double romance in the story keeps the film from being grim and thus well up in the realm of excellent entertainment. The film is excellently cast, John Litel is Gat Brady. . He was also in "The Life of Emile Zola" as was Vladimir Sokoloff, who played Cezanne, the artist, in that film. In "Alcatraz Island" Sokoloff plays a Dutchman, also an inmate of "The Rock," and gives one of the finest performances of the film. "Alcatraz Island" was directed by William McGann, from an original screen' play by Crane Wilbur. Included in the cast are Dick Purcell, Ben Welden, Addison j Richards, Pegy Bates, Ellen Clancy, and George E. Stone. "Prairie Thunder," starring Dick Foran (the singing cowboy), will also be shown.