THE REGENT THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 60, 12 March 1927, Page 12

THE REGENT THEATRE.

The screen has given "The Return of Peter Grimm," at the Regent, a realism impossible on the stage, and has yet retained all the pathetic, thwarted tenderness of Belasco's play. Peter Grimm is nearing the end of a simple, kindly life as a famous nurseryman, whose blooms are priceless. In the beautiful old home are a boy and girl he has adopted, wlio are thrown into consternation when the old man, with the obstinacy of age, announces that the girl Katie shall marry his son Frederick, just back from the university. Frail and buffering from heart trouble unknown to himself, Peter is loved by all, and when he tearfully pleads for Katie's consent to the marriage, she cannot refuse. Ten minutes after her consent, Peter passes away in a doze. A half sceptical compact with a friend, that the first to die shall return to this world, brings him back on the wedding eve, and his eyes are opened to the tragedy Katie's promise is about to cause. Two tragedies progress simultaneously. Peter solves his problem by an enthrallingly absorbing game of mental chess with the human pieces, bending their wills until the son is confounded and convicted before all, and Peter's return in the spirit is realised by all present. Peter, as played by Alec B. Francis, is a wonderfully lovable study, and Janet Gaynor, as Katie, is alternately a charming girl and a wistful woman. A splendid pictorial Fox news and a comedy arc the supports. Yost and Cindy, model wonderful faces in clay to cheery palter, a/id Matt Dixon's Regent Orchestra supplies the excellent music.