“They Won’t Forget” Laughs at Convention

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 11

“They Won’t Forget” Laughs at Convention

CONVICTED OF MURDER ON CIR CUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

(Mayfair: Screening Saturday.) Is it possible with modern justice for an innocent man to be convicted of murder and sent to his doom because of circumstantial evidence alone?

Tho story is one of a politically' ambitious district attorney (Claude Rains), who seizes an opportunity to reap gloryin the eyes of those directly about him.

In a murder trial a school teacher (Edward Norris), is being tried on a combination of circumstantial evidence aided by prejudice, he goes to his doom and the district attorney achieves his ultimate purpose. At the end, however, the latter admits to wondering whether or not the accused really was guilty. There aro three people who know that Mary Clay (Lana Turner), who was murdered, went back into the | building, and two who were already in .the school when Alary entered. An instructor who had stayed late, Robert Hale (Edward Norris), and the janitor, Tump Jledwino (Clinton Rosemond), were the two in tho building. A girl friend, Imogen o Alayfield (Linda Perry), a suitor, Joe Turer (Elisha Cook, Jr.) and tho school headmaster, Carlisle Burton (E. Alyn Warren) aro the who know that Alary Clay went back into tho building to get her vanity case.

Suspicion falls on the four men, but Redwine and Hale in particular. The ambitious district attorney, realising that it is a simple and inglorious achievement to convict a negro, charges Halo.

A strong, well-knit story, you know that any one of the abovementioned four men could as easily have been the murderer as Jlale on the basis of cir-

cumstances, but that tho latter was the only one that District Attorney Griffin could accuse to achieve his aim.

Claude Rains as tho district attorney gives a performance that as not to bo forgotten by even tho most critical and oratorical members of the bar. Pro-ducer-Director Mervyn Leßoy has given Allyn Joslyn, Gloria Dickson, Edward Norris, all seasoned stago performers, the title roles, and they come through in style.