REGENT THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 21, 24 July 1940, Page 12

REGENT THEATRE.

"Disputed Passage."

. Newspaper reporters and gangsters are . being crowded off the screen by doctors as Holly wood's No. 1 .story source. There is excitement in the private life of a . doctor and human drama behind hospital doors that make medical and scientific stories ideal for translation on to.the screen. The latest is Paramount's. version of the Lloyd Douglas best-seller, "Disputed Passage," a picture in the tradition of such hits as "Pasteur," "Men in' White," and "The Citadel." It. opens tomorrow at the Itegent Theatre, with Dorothy Lamdur, Akim Tamiroff, and John Howard heading a brilliant cask "Disputed Passage" deals more with a doctor's attitude towards his practice than the practice itself. In the picture, Akim Tamiroff plays the role or a doctor who believes in the stern dedication of the physician's life to science, with no room for human emotion. William Collier, sen., plays the role of a doctor to whom the/human side is as important as the scientific. Caught between these two attitudes are John Howard, product and pride of Tamiroff's instruction, and Dorothy Lam our, his sweetheart. Miss Lamdur is seen in the role of an American girl, brought up in China, who has returned to the Orient when Tamiroff says her marriage to. Howard, his most promising student, will ruin: the latter's career; Howard finds out what has happened and-sets out across the battlefronts of present-day; China, in search of his fiancee. One day, while attempting to rescue a wounded Chinese during an enemy air raid, he is himself dangerously hurt. A dramatic turn of events against the timely background of- war-torn Chilja. gives Miss Lamour the chance to show .what love can do and Douglas his cliance to prove his stirring thesisr-^that science can go only part of the way; the soul1 must do. the.rest . '■ ■ , "'"