CRYSTAL PALACE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19818, 4 January 1930, Page 9

CRYSTAL PALACE.

"THE MYSTERIOUS DR. FU MAN CHIT." ALL-TALKING MYSTERY THRILLER A master villain of fiction has, after sixteen years, teen brought from between the covers of books and at last lives on the screen to leer and laugh at the law. He ia Fu Manchu, Dr. Fu Manchu, "The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu," to give him his full title, and in the all-talking picture of that name he appears at Crystal Palace next week. From Sax Rohmer's widely-read and clever mystery story, Fu Manchu, that wily, sinister, hating Oriental, menaces every Anglo-Saxon on the screen, just as he did in the original, and Warner Oland, who flourished as a villain in the eilent pictures, but who is so much more realistic in "talkies," makes Fu a creature of almost unbelievable wickedness, withal very subtle, quiet, well-bred wickedness. Of all the mystery thrillers written during the last twenty years, the Fu Manchu stories are alone the work of a specialist in criminology. There is nothing quite so exciting as to watch a real smiling villian pur suing a pair of lovers with his maniacal vengeance. One instinctively knows that all will be well in the last reel, but how ? Nayland Smith, the Scotland Yard man, so well played by O. P. Hcggie, reveals himself to be almost as clever as Dr. Fu, who swore on the Sacred Dragon to avenge the lives of his wife and child, killed by the English during the Boxer Rebellion. With Warner Oland in this picture are Neil Hamilton, Jean Arthur, O. P. Heggie. Claude King, and William Austin. Among the supporting films are a comedy, "Hold Up," a clever satire on American "thugs," being the story of a registered academy for training promising young men in the Chicago business. "The Sidewalks of New York," popular twenty years ago, is given a song cartoon, very tuneful, bright, and new; the Fox News includes among other things talks by Briand, Arthur Henderson, Ramsay Mac Donald, and the late Dr. Stresemann, at Geneva. An all-talking cemedy, "Baby Talks,"- ib very amusing, and a cartoon, "Race Riots," completes this varied programme. The box plans are at The Bristol Piano Company, seats may be reserved