ST. JAMES THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 226, 20 June 1936, Page 13

ST. JAMES THEATRE

“Riffraff”

As the title suggests, “Riffraff,” at the St. James Theatre, is’ tough; so tough that it mal;es “Barbary Coast” another “East Lynn.” But in addition to its toughness it is 8500 feet of concentrated energy and action on the San Pedro waterfront, every foot of which is tingling excitement. Moreover, the casting director has selected in Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracey as leads two people who can put over the rapid-fire wisecracks of the water-rate as to the manner born. Dutch Miller, a champion tuna fisher, played by Tracey, is a real character, a young, hardbitten, big-headed, hard-fisted young fisherman, whose head is too big for his hat. Hattie, a pretty blonde who works in the tuna cannery, adores this boaster, and actually thinks he is the big shot he says he is, until after marriage he walks out of the fishermen’s union and finds himself an outcast. Then he wdiks out on Hattie, and she allows another admirer,. Nick Lewis, the dark-skinned owner of the fleet, to buy her things. But her love for Dutch is deep down, and when she learns that he is sick in a hobo camp she steals some of Nick’s money to give him. Nick’s sense of decency is so outraged by this act that he has Hattie arrested and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Jean Harlow is as beautiful as she is tough, and Speneer Tracey as Dutch is dynamic. Excellent work is also done by J. Farrell MacDonald as the union leader and Joseph Calieia as Nick Lewis. The programme also includes a capital Charlie Chase comedy, “Vamp Till Ready," and some informative pictures of the League of Nations at work.