'BRITISH AGENT'

Evening Star, Issue 21965, 27 February 1935, Page 16

'BRITISH AGENT '

EXCITING STORY FOR REGENT In one ot the sets of ‘British Agent,’ the First National picture which comes to the Regent Theatre on Fnday, Leslie Howard astonished the experts by showing, a more detailed knowledge -of firearms than the experts themselves. The set was an old attic in Moscow, where the counterrevolutionists maintained a secret arsenal. Stowed about the place were guns, ammunition, hand grenades, and a bewildering assortment of small arms. Among the genuine props were two machine guns of a type that Russia used prior to the time that the Allies supplied newer equipment. It was a little-known weapon. Leslie Howard, who saw active service during the World War, was the only one on the set familiar with it. The attic in which the arsenal was housed is an eerie place of distorted corners and menacing shadows, overlooking, the alleys ,of. Moscow... The offset walls around whose edges no light seemed to penetrate help to >give the .effect of menace and mystery, that the action in this-set demands. The rafters, following, .the lines of uneven gables, cast strange shadows that seem like flat gargoyles grinning from the murky ceiling. The picture, inspired by the best selling novel by R. H. Bruce .Lockhart, ' s a drama of the love of an unofficial diplomat and an .aristocratic Russian lady turned Red. and their conflict between their love for each other and their separate connteries. Leslie Howard and Kay Francis have, the stellar roles, while others in the cast include William Gargan, Phillip Reed, Irving Pichel, and JValter Byron,