"KIDNAPPED"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 7

"KIDNAPPED"

STERLING ADVENTURE

When one opens "Kidnapped" one plunges directly into the early 70's in Scotland with the author. Given the same privilege, the fine adventurous film at the State Theatre is not quite so convincing, though pictoriaUy, and in dress, acting, and settings it conveys the contemporary spirit admir-. ably. Nobody need fear a dialect infliction. Even a mere Sassenach realises that there are. no freckles on the vowels, while the bagpipes come in only once, and then only to play the Dominie's pupils out to the play hour. Stevenson built up his characters with studious fidelity; their last action was foreshadowed by their first, and in this the film has been remarkably successful in capturing the spirit of the past. So well has the era been depicted in the sets, that the absence of accent is the more noticeable, especially as the chief interest is in the clash of two nations as yet little intermingled. Those were the days when the novel English yoke still galled Scottish necks. Warner Baxter, as Alan Breck, the dashing gallant swordsman who flits like a bogy through the bad dreams of the interloping authorities and their soldiers, does a masterly piece of work as the rebel patriot, but one misses the will-o-the-wisp atmosphere, the mist, and heather, of the novel. The big events are presented in convincing fashion. It seems unreal for a hiding outlaw to choose a chain of village hotels for his journeys, but that is probably a concession to the i inevitable in.troductioa oi! the romantic

aspect in Arleen Whelan. Nobody would wish her left out of the story after seeing it, so skilfully has she been written into it. When Jamie shoots the King's tax collector, and is to be smuggled out of Scotland, he sees the chance to possess Jean McDonald, who is really being married to him by her people to bring property into the family, and refuses to ship unless she goes with him to America. It is Alan's chivalry which makes him insist on seeing her safe to Glasgow to meet her sweetheart, and which brings another odyssey into the. tale to replace the hiding alone in the heather. By combining with this the adventures and kidnapping of David Balfour, a series of exciting situations dovetail delightfully with the main plot. Freddie Bartholomew adds to his laurels as the high-spirited lad, who, after, sound grounding in the principles of honour and loyalty set by the Dominie, sets off afoot to Edinburgh to be disillusioned by his rascally and parsimonious uncle, Ebenezer. Scenes that will stand out in the memory are the tax collector's end and the flight, the admiration growing to friendship between boy and man by firelight, the climb up the dark, crazy stairs lit by lightning flashes in the ruinous old castle, which Ebenezer intends should end in the boy's death, the kidnapping, and seascapes, the escape in the ship's boat, the fight, and the intensely exciting climax. English outlaw and Scottish patriot. Alan moves mostly in the dark, and the wonderful night effects throughout gain by sepia tone and exceptionally fine lighting. Ebenezer, Hoseason, Rankeillor, and other outstanding people are well acted by C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen, John Caradine, Nigel Bruce, Miles Mander, Ralph Forbes, and H. B. Warner. Supports are entertaining.