LEWIS’S “DODSWORTH”

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 47, 19 November 1936, Page 3

LEWIS’S “DODSWORTH”

Film Version. Coming to Regent Theatre A powerful social drama, adapted from the novel by Sinclair Lewis and produced for United Artists by Samuel Goldwyn, under the title “Dodsworth,” will start to-morrow at the Regent Theatre. It was privately screened to an enthusiastic preview audience a few nights ago. The film is lifted far above the standards of ordinary productions by the brilliant character acting of the principals, who include Walter Huston, in the name part, Ruth Chatterton as Mrs. Dodsworth, Mary Astor as the woman who eventually wins Dodsworth’s loyalty and affection, and Paul Lukas and David Niven in other roles. ’ , Every modern artifice of the producer s skill has been employed, so that backgrounds are appropriate to the everchanging European capitals in which much of the story is enacted. Modernity is the keynote, even to the scenes of the mammoth new luxury liner Queen Mary, on which the Dodsworths embark on their soul-ruining European travels after a lifetime of domestic bliss. This is not the occasion for telling the story of “Dodsworth.” It is a story commonplace enough in the lives of many who did not “live happily ever after,” yet it is presented with such rare delicacy of expression and consummate artistry that it never so much as threatens to descend to banality. Ruth Chatterton, famous for her many sophisticated roles, gives what many believe to be the outstanding portrayal of her career in a part which calls for a complete reversal of her own individuality. She is so convincing as the stupidlv selfish wife, _ who brings shipwreck to a happy union, that the audience forgets the attractiveness of the player in the contemptible character that she creates. Walter Huston, as Samuel Dodsworth, seems to be the living embodiment of the man Sinclair Lewis made famous in his analysis of the doting American husband, over-mastering in business ability, yet boyishly incapable of controlling and directing a spoilt wife who did not know when she was well off. On the supporting programme will be Walt Disney’s colour eartoon, "Mickey’s Grand Opera,” and the latest issue of “The March Of Time,”