RISES TO RARE HEIGHTS

Evening Star, Issue 23353, 24 August 1939, Page 7

RISES TO RARE HEIGHTS

SPENCER TRACEY’S ’ BOYS’ TOWN ’

A graphic, vivid, and compelling picture envisaging the life and ideals of one of the most picturesque and useful communities in the world, ‘ Boys’ Town,’ the leading picture of'a striking programme which will begin its season in the Regent to-morrow, exploits with surprising success the attraction and appeal for modern audiences of the realities and practical problems of life enacted in story form.

The ministry among m the United States of America in the past quarter-century by the Rev, E. J. Flanagan has become an epic of actual human redemption. Basing the theme cm the actual facts and setting of Father Flanagan’s recreated juvenile world, ‘ Boys’ Town ’ uses necessary theatrical license to make a palpitating story of the building of the enterprise, and of the experiences of a hnrcl-crusted bad boy who blundered into this strange Lilliput colony, and what the town did to him. Dramatically, yet with convincing truth to actual experience, Spencer Tracy, .enacting -the- character- and liv-

ing the trials of Father Flanagan, with the help of a capable cast, rebuilds before the eyes of patrons this small city of redemption which has laws and customs to be seen nowhere else on earth,

Into this paradise enters Mickey Rooney, case-hardened young antisocialist, imbued with the spirit of militant destructiveness. Drama, comedy, and pathos fill out the picture with gripping interest as-the inhabitants of the little town get to work on Mickey, chipping off, bit by bit, the hardened crust, of fear, suspicion, and scepticism, eventually to expose an unexpectedly sweet and sound kernel. ‘ Boys’ Town ’ is one of those true fairy tales, so extremely rare in this workaday world, which charms and fascinates adults equally with juveniles, and creates an intriguing enthusiasm for service.