MAJESTIC THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 8, 4 October 1941, Page 12

MAJESTIC THEATRE

It is some small comfort to find that Sweden, even in 1941, with the Nazi eat sharpening his claws around the corner, still has time for parties and murders and sleigh rides and beautiful women. “A Woman's Face,” now in its second week at the Majestic Theatre, is a splendid film for two reasons: The plot is as concise as a Churchill speech, and it gives Joan Crawford a chance to retrieve fully her sadly-battered film reputation. A Swedish woman with a scarred face is the leader of a gang of blackmailers. In exhorting money from a foolish young woman, she meets her husband, a brilliant plastic surgeon. He wipes out the hideous scars, but she t-till goes _ her nefarious way. plotting with a penniless man of good family to remove bis small nephew so that the uncle might enjoy a considerable fortune. But the plot, seemingly gone astray, proves a boomerang of good fortune to practically everyone. Joan Crawford, first as the scarred, cynical blackmailer, and later as the woman who discovers love, has played no finer part in five years; the other members of the cast —Melvyn Douglas, as the surgeon, Osa Massen, as his lovely empty-headed wife, Conrad Veidt as the scheming Swede badly in need of money—are all so good that one is left in no doubt why “A Woman’s Face” is earning praise in many other countries. Churchill in Iceland and Roosevelt in his grimmest address yet, are two highlights in the first half of the programme.