"TOO MANY CROOKS."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19114, 24 September 1927, Page 7

"TOO MANY CROOKS."

MYSTERY-CUM-COMEDY. CRYSTAL ,PALACE, MONDAY. She was rich, but honest. That was all right, but she wanted to write a play. They decided to cure her, and as America is a most wonderful place (not an advertisement), where you can buy perfectly good five-cent cigars, read "Elmer Gantry',' in the original, and throw a Btone at a polieoman right in New York City without fear of any consequences, all they had to do was to engage some professional criminals (the locale of the story is doubtless Chicago), and give them carte blanche with the house. But amongst the criminals was a man of surpassing beauty, of witty speech, and excellentlytailored clothes,' just the sort you read of in the advertisements.. He was one crook too many, and the amazing heroine, who had doubtless been reading Horatio Algey before she went to sleep, decided to reform him as well as write a play. So "Too Many Crooks' came into being, and this uproariously amusing comedy-mystery drama will head next week's programme at tho Crystal Palace Theatre. It must be a somewhat difficult proposition to write an original crook play. A'ter the advent of "Within the Law, which used up all really thrilling melodrama, one has become accustomed to witnessing merely a variation upon that theme, which ultimately gets tiring. Not so with "Too Many Crooks." More laughs than Bayard Veiller ever got are scattered gcnerously through the plot of this swiftly-moving and mvstery-laden society drama, and as the popular Lloyd Hughes is one of the screen s best heroes, thero is quite a goodly measure of romance in the story. For all its pleasant humour, and eerie thrills, and ingenious mvsteries, it is the prominent newness o£ "Too Many Crooks" that captures the attention first, and it is that which stamps a picturo as above average these days. Mildred Davis and George Bancroft support Hughes; William V. Mong, Cleve Moore, and John St. Polis are some of the engaging "crooks." , . The second picture is Wings of Jie Storm," starring William Russell and Virginia Brown Fa ire, but tho player in the cast who attracts most attention is Thunder, vet another of the many wonderfully intelligent dogs who adorn the picture screen at the present time. For appreciation of purely lmman emotions, humour, pathos, Thunder is a marvel among his fellows, and goes far towards .making "Wings of the Storm ' the engrossing story it is. The SvmphoW Orchestra, under the baton of Mr Alfred tfeunz, will play the following programme of incidental selections: Overture, "Pique Dame" (Suppe); "Pastorale" Symphony (Beethoven), "Sapho" (Massenet), "Pilgrim's Song" (Batiste), "Cloister Meditations" (Spialek), "The Judgment of Paris" (Mouton), "Threo Mask Dancers" (Wood), "0, For the Wings of a Dove" (Mendelssohn), "Sweet and Low" (Gershwin), "A Doll's Dance" Brown). The box plans are now open at Tho Bristol Piano Co., where seats may be reserved.