ST. JAMES THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 126, 30 May 1931, Page 6

ST. JAMES THEATRE.

"Within the Law" electrified New Zealand audiences long beforo '-Mary Dugan," and its screen version now at St. Jiuncs Theatre, lias lost nothing iv grip and popular appeal. The story of the girl who got thrco years for a theft sho did not commit, and who revenged herself on the law by guiding a gang of croolts In plunder paths within the four walls of the. litw, is better suited to dramatic presentation than are most of Its kind; and the argument and the action flow so well together that any competent cast should put the play over right well. And there is no doubt that tlio cast headed by Joan Crawford does tho job to the satisfaction of the audience. And Miss Joan Crawford has good support. The different kinds of heart Interest—her affair with tho chivalrous burglar Joo Carson (Robert Armstrong) and her bitter-sweet alllanca with the gilded Bob Gilder (Kont Douglas) —were served up with discrimination. John Miljan's Tollee Inspector was quite a restrained aiVair, and was tho more effective for that reason. Tho "third degree" stuff has to be done in the American-way, and the leg parade iv gaol hjvs to be put in as a sort of sauce to the legitimate stage verson, but generally speaking tho police force, represented mainly by. Jliljan and E. E. O'Connor, is no more diabolical than it has to be. That old "silent" favourite Marie Prevost, puts on good comedy as Aggie, and her crook •associates maintain their reputations even to the death-bed. The supporting items are a Charley Chase comedy, headed by a new star from equatorial Africa; also a news gazette, with a real thrill ill the form of a triple parachute descent.