REGENT TALKIES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVIII, Issue 31, 20 November 1939, Page 3

REGENT TALKIES.

WEDNESDAY. “I AM THE LAW.” Heralded as one of the most important pictures of 1938, because of its unique story, fine cast and splendid technical staff, Columbia’s “I Am the Law” opens at the Waipawa Regent Theatre on Wednesday evening, starring Edward G. Robinson. “I Am the Law,” story of a one-man battle to stamp out the racketeering which menaces a metropolis, was produced by Everett Riskin, Columbia producer who made the scintillating “Holiday,” and directed by Alexander Hall. Robinson is cast as a mild-mannered law professor who employs his sabbatical leave to wipe out the rackets as a fighting' prosecutor. Otto Kurger is the undercover chief of the underworld who, to divert suspicion from himself, is active in encouraging and advising Robinson’s anti-crime campaign. Barbara O’Neil, who made her screen debut in “Stella Dallas,” is reported to provide a sensational performance as Robinson’s wife, and Wendy Barrie and John Beal, as an ex-reporter turned gungirl, and as the crusading professor’s aide, are others in the exceptional cast. "I Am the Law” has a novel and thrillpacked climax, according to advance reports, in which Robinson shows several hundred criminals a news reel of an electrocution: he also shows a suspects’ “Candid” news movies of racketeering conferences. These, as prima facie evidence of collusion between supposed honest citizens and known criminals, are effective in leading toward confessions. The climax is, in itself, brought about by a motion picture. Robinson obtains an actual movie of a murder being' committed—a picture obtained under dramatic but perfectly feasible circumstances,