REGENT THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 6, 7 July 1938, Page 14

REGENT THEATRE.

-Portia on Trial."

"There, but for the grace of God, I, Portia Mefriman, would.be facing a verdict of life or death-rinstead of this young, unfortunate victim of a coward s infatuation." A sensational outburst from the lips of the country's foremost woman barrister, forced by circumstances to be a stranger to her own son, and later ordered by Fate to defend the murderess of that son's father. This is the problem pf Portia Mernman, played with illuminating depth and insight by. Frieda Inescort in "Portia on Trial," which opens tomororw lat the Regent Theatre. Portia, as the price ,of her son's name, was forced, seventeen years. before, to forgo maternal claim on him by signing false affidavits which presented her as a woman unfit for motherhood. Later, when Fate brings the two together in highly .dramatic circumstances, she acknowledges her birthright and defies the world to challenge it. Old John Condon takes up this challenge, John Condon, industrial and political magnate, whose word is sufficient to make or break men. He brings Portia before the Bar Association in an effort to expel her from the Bar, but she outwits'him with a brilliant and dramatic coup whheh forms one of the high spots of the production. Clarence Kolb is excellent as the ruthless Condon. Walter Abel gives an outstanding performance as Dan Foster, the young District Attorney who loves Portia Merriman as a woman even as he scqrns her as ah unscrupulous criminal lawyer. And little Heather Angel will nofbe soon forgotten as the unhappy English girl who is brought over to America only to learn the bitterness of scorn and hatred* Her betrayal forms the background of the dramatic trial scene, which has had few peers in screen history. A delightful screen adaptation of Faith Baldwin's world-popular human romance, "Portia on Trial" is an honest and fearless revelation of the life of one woman that is the life of all women.