“THE MASQUERADER.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 935, 4 December 1933, Page 3

“THE MASQUERADER.”

Ronald Colman Triumph in Fourth Week. The strange story of John Chileote, M.P., who vanished into a London fog, leaving a man precisely similar in appearance to carry on liis life's work, is told in “ The Masquerader ”, which entered the fourth week of its highly successful season at the Plaza Theatre on Saturday. Ronald Colman has never been seen to better advantage than in this great dramatic triumph, in which he portrays two characters. Since both are exactly similar in appearance, the two character parts are played without make-up, and the differences tr* temperament and personality have to he revealed without any artificial aids. What a great actor Ronald Colman really is “ The Masquerader ” proves in convincing fashion. The irritability of the drug-sodden M.P. gives place in a moment to the good-humour of John Loder, double of the politician and struggling journalist, as the scenes change in rapid succession, till at last, by a miracle of double exposure and sound synchronisation, Ronald Colman looks at himself, and talks to himself, in a London fog. In several scenes the two characters are together, but such is the "“technical perfection of the film that there is nothing stiff or stilted about the action, even when one of the figures bends over the other. Before the war Katherine Thurston’s novel, “John Chileote, M.P.”, was a best seller, and the intriguing story was made doubly familiar by the stage success under the title of the present film, which Guy Bates Post played in New Zealand seven years ago. Those who read the book and saw the play will revel in the screen presentation, which, modernised and refurbished, is incomparably the best entertaining medium of the three. Beautiful Elissa Landi plays the wife of the drug addict, and much of the charm of the picture is due to her prominence in a well-chosen cast. The supports are in keeping with the high standard set by the feature film.