Edward G. Robinson In Remarkable Impersonation

Northern Advocate, 2 December 1939, Page 12

Edward G. Robinson In Remarkable Impersonation

Edward G. Robinson comes to the screen in what he has described as the most fascinating role of his career .—the truly extraordinary title character of “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,” a bizarre crime film with hilarious undertones of comedy, based by Warner Bros, on the London and New York stage hit of the same name, It is a tale of a distinguished neurological surgeon who embarks upon a career of crime in order, so he says,

to study the mental and physical reac-

tions of criminals during those mom- • ents when they are perpetrating their crimes. He becomes as successful a criminal in the course of his allegedly scientific dual existence as he is a surgeon. In fact, his facile brain soon enables him to become the leader a bigtime band of robbers previously dominated by Humphrey Bogart and for whom Claire Trevor is the stylishly garbed “fence.”

Leading his band in one big rob-

bery after another, the doctor seems to manifest a strange zest for his illegal enterprises until he is suddenly brought up short by arrest for the murder of Bogart, who had threatened blackmail.*" Placed on trial for his life, the doctor escapes the penalty for the murder he has undoubtedly committed by a shrewd manipulation of the psychology of the jurors. It is one of the strangest denouements ever related in any film, but convincing nevertheless and highly amusing. Other members of the impressive cast, besides those already mentioned, include Gale Page, Allen Jenkins, Donald Crisp, Henry O’Neill, John Litel, Thurston Hall, Maxie Rosenbloom. Ward Bond, Curt Bois, Bert Hanlon and Vladimir Sokoloff.