ST. JAMES THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 71, 21 September 1939, Page 6

ST. JAMES THEATRE.

"Valley of the Giants."

Wayne Morris and Claire Trevor head the cast of "Valley of the Giants," the technicolor picture based by Warner Bros, on the famous Peter B. Kyne novel of the same name, which opens tomorrow at the St. James Theatre. It is the story of the successful fight waged to prevent the utter despoliation of California's famous redwood forests by ruthless Eastern lumber interests '(represented by Charles Bickford) around the turn of the century. While it is concerned with one local aspect of this fight, telling in highlyexciting manner of the clash between one such despoiler and an altruistic young local lumberman, it is typical of the situation throughout the redwood country at that time. Modern audiences will discover a curious parallel between the methods employed by the exploiters of more than thirty years ago and those of the men who have come to be known today as racketeers. Graft and corruption, legalistic trickery, and physical violence all have their part in the story, but it is the last-thentioned method that gives the new Warner picture its most thrilling moments. The picture has two of the most '■ hair-raising sequences ever filmed.-. One depicts the rescue of the heroine from a runaway freight caboose just a moment before it reaches a trestle which, with supports deliberately cut away by the villain's henchmen, collapses under the weight of four lumber-laden flat cars. The other shows a terrific battle between the villain and the hero on top of a dam and the dynamiting of the dam. Supporting the two stars is one of the most notable casts ever cssembled for such a production, including Charles Bickford. Frank McHugh, Alan Hale, Jack La Rue, Donald Crisp, John Litel, and Dick Purcell.