SILENT WITNESS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 260, 25 June 1932, Page 7

SILENT WITNESS

III LIONEL ATWELL RE-ENACTS NOTABLE STAGE j SUCCESS. | A BROADWAY HIT. .*■ Theatrical producers haVe been |jj known to mak© great sacrifices in order to sell their plays to the moj|| tion pictnres, and conversely, movie llj producers have been known to enter ■I! into some spirited bidding for a | stage production, partieularly when 'J! the production was in the 'smash' m class. | A most unusual example of this H keen desire to buy and sell was fur- - nished when the Fox Film Corporation was dickering with the producI er of the Broadway hit, "The Silent | Witness," which comes in talking picS ture forin to the Majestic Theafre I next Saturday. g After witnessing the stage produc- § tion several tim.es the Fox officials I made a fabulous offer for the screen ; | rights which the stage producer was $ ready to accept whan a condition was ! I interposed. The actor who was play- |

| ing the leading role in the Broadway production was the well known stage star, Lionel Atwill, and the movie people decided that he was the only player who could give the role the necessary life and vitality on the screen. , The stage producer was inclined to demur at first. The show was soon to go on tour and he wanted Mr. Atwill to play the lead in the road ■ show. But when the demands of the | Fox executives became insistent Mr. ' Atwill was called into the conference - | and v/hen he expressed a desire to | enact his stage role on the screen the j j stage producer decided to entrust the i road show role to the star's understudy. Mr. Atwill's role is that of Sir Austin Howard, an indulgent father I , who accepts the responsibility for a murder, which his pampered son thinks he is committed, to find himj self so emneshed in a web of circumstantial evidence that extrication and acquittal seem beyond the realm j of all possibility. His portrayal of I i the role on the screen is said by | j those who have seen the film and | ! stage play to exceed in dramatic qualI I ity his stage performance of the a same part. f With Mr. Atwill in the picture are J such notahles as Gre'tna Nissen, Helen | Mack, Bramwell Fleteher, Weldon || ■ Heyburn, Mary Fovbes, Billy Bevan and Herbert Mundin. The produc- |! ; tion was directed by Marcel Varnel I j and R. L. Hough from Douglas Doty's 1 i adaptation of the stage play of Jack I De Leon and Jack Celestin.