SENSATIONAL PORTRAYALS

Evening Star, Issue 23335, 3 August 1939, Page 3

SENSATIONAL PORTRAYALS

CLIVE, BROOK AS CYNICAL ARISTOCRAT One of the most dramatic trial films ever produced', 1 The Ware Case,’ starring Clive Brook, the distinguished English actor, will open at the Regent to-morrow. Tills picture, which is taken from a successful stage play by Sir Gerald du Manner, was produced once before on the screen in the days of “ silent ” films, but a new brilliance, both of acting and producing, has made the story more powerful than ever.

One of the main features of the production is the fact that Clive Brook, who has been absent from the screen for some time, returns in a performance typical of his best as the rather cynical aristocrat, Sir Hubert Ware, who lias to face ,a charge of murdering his brother-in-law. This is not ’an easy part to play, for the easy- indifference of the character can easily be made to seem unreal, but the principal is completely at homo as this man who refuses to conform to the new bounds set on his activities by a falling income, preferring to avoid bankruptcy byflattering his creditors into ail uneasy toleranceAftcr showing the series of events which have occasioned the trial, the scone returns to the court room, where the main merit of the film lies. There is a cold efficiency about an Englsli court which underlies all the elaborate decorum and formality that tradition have built up. and this is brought out splendidly by the efficiency of the prosecuting counsel and a thousand little events that maintain the realism of this battle for life or death. Humour is not shut out, hut by Is very unexpectedness it, too, serves mostly to increase the tension. Behind the mere fact of the trial, however, there is a human story of more than usual interest, and when the court scenes are left there is still an amazing climax waiting to be played. The supporting parts are all brilliantly taken, Barry K. Barnes repeating his success in 1 This Man is News ’ as the likeable defending attorney, who is at last successful, and Jane .Baxter playing the defendant’s wife with admirable restraint.

An outstanding siiiinortiug programme includes n leclildeolour film of the King and Queen at Ottawa, and a delightful historical film. ‘ Romantic England.’