“The Informer” Carries a Real Recommendation

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 226, 25 September 1935, Page 11

“The Informer” Carries a Real Recommendation

VICTOR McLAGLEN IN ONE OF THE YEAR’S TEN BEST

(State: Screening To-day.)

The recent release of “The Daformer” brought forth a veritable avalanche of praise, concensus of opinion acclaiming it a certain contender for the next Academy Award. With a universality of opinion tnat is most uncommon, trade and newspaper critics agree that it will be one of the ten best pictures of the year and will wind up close to the top of that exclusive list. Produced by the same stall that was responsible for * ‘ The Lost Patrol,” and presenting the same star, Victor McLaglen, R.K.0.Radio’s picturisation of Liam O’Flaherty’s widely-read novel, has now arrived and has been passed by the Censorship Board. Accounted one of the greatest character studies and most absorbing stories known to literature, “The Informer” affords Victor McLaglen tho finest role of his entire career. The action transpires in Ireland, but locale is negligible. It could occur anywhere . . . wherever men aro simple in their passions. For Gypo Nolan, the central figure, is more than a character; he is a symbol of men, their hates, loves and desires. Ho symbolises their strength, their courage, their weaknesses, their fears.

Margot Grahame, blonde English beauty, who has starred on the London stage and in numerous British films, makes her American screen debut in the feminine lead opposite McLagien, while Heather Angel, Preston Poster, Wallace Pord and Una O’Connor head the strong supporting cast. If it bo truo that blessings never come singly, it also seems to bo the rule that one good film deserves another, and of all these seen lately there comes another which promises to share top-rank honours for the year. It is a genuinely Irish, genuinely magnilicent picture. It is a bitter and tragic description of an incident in the Sinn Pein rebellion of 1920, depicting the mental hell of a man who betrays his best friend to the Black and Tans. Tho action takes place mostly in the darkened Dublin streets, in the rebels’

hide-out, and with flashes of tho betrayed man’s home, and a wake. Therefore there aro no elaborate settings to detract attention from the acting, which, however, needs no off-set, as the performances of all concerned aro outstanding. There is not much faneifuluess about “Tho Informer,” but there is the highest possible order of intelligence and imagination. If you follow Victor McLaglcu as we do, you will regard his playing of Gypo Nolan, tho renegade, as one of tho finest tragic-comic characterisations.