“Vanity Street.”

Thames Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 18732, 16 February 1933, Page 3

“Vanity Street.”

FIRST SCREENING TO-NIGHT. THE KING’S PROGRAMME. Charles Bickford, the greatest heman lover of the screen, has, after a notable series of rough-hewn roles, been given a slightly -softened part in Columbia’s picture, “Vanity Street,” screening at the King’s tonight. Moreover,' Mr Bickford, in a glamorous story of the' individuals who make up the i famous Ziegfeld Follies, proves that ■ a great city police officer (the part he plays in the film) has other qualities besides heroism. For Bickford plays tlio Good Samaritan to a . stray young woman, Who has neither friends, funds nor a home. Bickford playa strictly business-like radio detective who tours the rough section of his beat, and is so wedded to his job that girls rank nil with him. Sympathy, yes—he offers them that much, but fall in love! Not him! Women, he avers, interfere with duty, and his motto is “Duty first.” His entire social life is bounded by his cruising about in the police car and bachelor quarters in an apartment house in the heart of his “beat.” Instead of roaring and swearing and inflicting, his hardboiled hammer; blows on scoundrels, he is in this story, an arbiter of peace, a soothing-syrup intermediary between the police sergeant’s desk and troubled neighbours, Hchjn Chandler and Mayor Methot have the leading feminine roles. ; There will be a number of good supports, including bulletins of topical e'vents. “Speed Demon,” featuring William Collier, Junv., and Joan Marsh, and “Salomy Jane,” with Charles Farrell, Joan Bennett and Ralph Bellamy, are the feature-films for Saturday and Monday neitov v -