FINE FILM LAVISHLY PRODUCED

Evening Star, Issue 21092, 3 May 1932, Page 7

FINE FILM LAVISHLY PRODUCED

JOHN BARRYMORE’S ’MAD GENIUS’ When John Barrymore first read the script of 1 The Mad Genius,’ his latest picture, which opens on I' riday at the Regent Theatre, ho said it offered the kind of role that comes but once, in a lifetime. Tsarakov, the mad genius, is indeed such a part—artist voluptuary, mastermind, and driving force, ho dominates men and women by sheer force of will—bonds fate to meet his needs and conquers all but the unconquerable human equation which eventually proves his undoing. The story of ' The Mad Genius moves relentlessly to a tremendous climax built about the powerful personality of the one man, Tsarakov, Few moments in pictures have been so aweinspiring as the last few hundred feetof film of ‘ The Mad Genius, Elaborate and picturesque backgrounds are seen in this production. Early sequences of the story show the star "as master of a travelling marionette show. For this part of the story the Club Titerero, Hollywood's principal puppet shop, worked night and day for two months, building figures and apparatus for the few brief scenes in which the puppets actually appear. Later incidents in the story take place against the elaborate background of European theatres in rehearsals and performances of the Russian Imperial Ballet, where the half-mad impressario Tsarkov, works out his demonaic devices. Three complete ballets were trained by Adolph Bolm for these sequences. Although the dances and dancers appear only as atmosphere background for the story, three great theatre interiors were constructed for those scenes.

Marian Marsh and Don Cook play the loading juvenile roles. Others in the cast arc Carmel Myers, Charles Rutterworth, Luis AI borni, Andre Lugot, Boris Karlotf, Fraukie Darro, and Mae Madison.