REGENT THEATRE,

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 27, 31 July 1940, Page 10

REGENT THEATRE,

"The Earl of Chicago."

A Chicago gangster becomes an English earl by inheritance. That is the interesting situation in "The Earl of Chicago," starring Robert Montgomery, and opening tomorrow at the Regent Theatre. Montgomery plays Silky Kilmount, a gangster who operates a liquor enterprise, strictly legitimate, but uses the gang salesmanship methods of Prohibition days. That there is something new in movie plots is evidenced by the twist this story takes. Silky inherits an English estate and title, becoming the Twelfth Earl of Gorley. Illiterate, but shrewd, cold, calculating, and cruel, his distorted personality has a queer quirk. He has a terror of guns, saying, "If I want to smash something. I smash it. I don't just chip off bits and mess it up. That's want a gun does. It ain't like I'm afraid. I ain't afraid to die. I ain't afraid of anything." Greed takes Silky to England where he avidly expects to collect £2,000,000. Bewildered in a situation he can't understand, he is forced to depend on his lawyer and pal, Doc. Ramsey, played by Edward Arnold. When Doc. "rats' r on him, Silky murders him and is tried by his peers in the House of Lords, a murder trial scene never before filmed. He goes to his death in the Tower of London, wearing full court costume, plumed hat, embroidered satin coat, silk knee breeches, and silk cape. And he dies, not as Silky Kilmount, Chicago gangster, but with the courageous dignity and ceremony befitting Lord Gorley. Silky gives Montgomery a role powerfully dramatic, but tempered with rich humour; In the supporting cast are Reginald Owen, Edmund Gwenn, E. E. Clive, Ronald Sinclair, Norma Varden, and others. ■ . ■ •