LAURIER, PORT CHALMERS

Evening Star, Issue 22414, 11 August 1936, Page 6

LAURIER, PORT CHALMERS

‘ The Clairvoyant,’ a GaumontBritish picture, which begins to-day at the Laurier, is an intriguing story of a variety actor and his wife who tour the music halls with a fake mind-read-ing act. But suddenly, when in the presence of a certain girl, the daughter of a newspaper proprietor, the man acquires real powers of clairvoyance, foretelling with terrifying accuracy forthcoming events, including a train smash and the winner of the Derby. After a chequered career, which culminates in the dock of the Assize Court for predicting a terrible tunnel disaster, the clairvoyant is acquitted, and all ends well. Played against a broad canvas-embracing channel steamer, music hall, the Derby meeting, ji luxurious hotel, and other scenes, the picture has been excellently mounted, while the toiling gangs in the river tunnel and the subsequent explosion and flood are scenes that impress themselves on the memory not only for their stark tragedy but as superb examples of the cinamatic art. Claude Rains gives a fine performance as the clairvoyant, and virtually bears the whole production on bis shoulders, although it never proves too much for him. He is light and gay, dramatic and overwrought in turn, but always with equal conviction and sincerity. Fay Wray and Jane Baxter play the leading male roles.