LLOYD DOUGLAS NOVEL FILMED

Evening Star, Issue 23679, 12 September 1940, Page 6

LLOYD DOUGLAS NOVEL FILMED

DISPUTED PASSAGE' THRILLING FARE Digging deep beneath the surface of human motives and emotions, Paramount’s ‘ Disputed Passage,’ which opens at the Regent to-morrow, is a thrilling screen version of Lloyd C. Douglas’s hest-selling novel. The story is a realistic exposition of the experience of a young doctor—a story that ranks with ‘ The Citadel ’ and ‘ Men in White ’ for sheer drama, power, and a realistic outlook on life. To Dorothy Lamonr, Akim Tamiroff, and John Howard go the major dramatic honours of the new film. Miss Lamonr has her first truly dramatic role as a young American’ girl, brought up m China, who returns to the land of her parents to seek help lor the stricken Chinese people In America she meets Howard, in the role of a brilliant young doctor, and Akim Tamiroff, a top-flight surgeon who has been Howard’s mentor since the start of the latter’s medical career. When Tamiroff learns that the youngsters have fallen in love, he persuades Miss Lamonr that marriage would ruin her fiance’s career. No man can concentrate properly when his mind is beset by doubts and anxieties, be claims Relieving she sees an analogy in her own life and in her work for China. Miss Lamonr leaves her hotel without seeing Howard and disappears. That night Howard receives a cryptic telegram; We must follow our separate paths—-

you toward your goal, I toward mine. Good-bye.” The young doctor is a changed .nan. His heart is no longer in his work Day after day he gazes dreamily from the laboratory windows. Tamiroff, trying to shake him from his dilemma, accidentally reveals the true cause of his betrothed’s departure. The drama becomes more tense and excitingly timely when the locale of the story shifts to war-torn China.