AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 394, 30 March 1937, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

Plaza Theatre. BARRYMORE IN “DEVIL DOLL.” An unusuial but non© the less enteraining story is told in “The Devil Doll,” which I to open a season at th© Plaza Theatre, to-night. In the leading role is on© of Hollywood’s most experienced and capable actors, Lionel Barrymore, to whom is entrusted (he tas.k of impersonating a woirlan for th© greater part of the film. His change from a heavy-brov.'ed, shaggyhaired man to the image of a benign old woman is one which calls for vast acting experience, and Barrymore has supplied it. The Etory deals with a scientist whose mind is unhinged. His power of reducing* animals and human beings? to a fraction of their former size and depriving them of their will is imaginative enough in all conscience, but on the screen it seems credible, even probable. The cast ie excellent and includes Frank Lawton, Maureen O’Sullivan and Henry B. Walthall.

King’s Theatre. “Sworn Enemy.” Teeming with flesh-and-blood characters from all walks of lite, swiept up from the city streets into a cauldron of £ram.atic circumstance—this is “Sworn Enemy,” a story of metropolitan crime operations, showing at the King’s Theatre to-night land to-mor-row. Headlining the cast are Robert Young as a son of the city slums endeavouring to go straight in a low career until the gang with whom he was raised kills his brother. Florence Rise as a surgeon’s daughter, who proves the best detective on the special force, Joseph Calleia as the sinister Joe Emerald, crippled overlord of the rackets, sports lover and perverse philanthropist, a killep unknown even to his own lieutenants. Lewis Stone as Dr. Gattie, distinguished surgeon, who spends twelve years in the penitentiary on a charged “framed” by Emerald. Nat Pedleton, as Steamer Krupp, a great-hearted, child-minded prize-fighter, and a pivoted character in the melee.

“Sworn Enemy” is based on a story by Richard Wormser, and was directed by Edwin L. Marin, director of such recent hits as "Speed,” "Moonlight Murder,” and “The Garden hfurder Case.” The plot depicts the struggle of a poor boy trying to go straight until his brother and employer are killed by the men with whom he was raised; then follows his demoniacal lust for revenge. The pace is swift from the opening scene when, having landed his first job, he struggles with gang representatives who demand part of his salary for "protection,” to the final qlimax in the luxurious penthouse of the gang oVsrlortl, „. ; <