REGENT THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 2, 4 January 1939, Page 9

REGENT THEATRE

“BACK IN CIRCULATION” “Back in Circulation,” a Warner Bros, picturisation of the magazine story, “Angel Shooter,” starring Pat O’Brien and Joan Blondell, which opens to-day at the Regent Theatre, is an engrossing newspaper drama, presenting a behind-the-scenes view of the ethics of news gathering and the power of the Press over lives and reputations. The story revolves around the death, under mysterious circumstances, of a millionaire. This becomes known, through an anonymous letter, to Pat O’Brien, editor of a metropolitan tabloid newspaper. Sensing sensational news, he assigns his star reporter to investigate. Amassing a damaging amount of circumstantial evidence, the widow of the seemingly murdered man, portrayed by Margaret Lindsay, is brought to trial. Refusing to enter any defence to the charge, she is found guilty, chiefly on the strength of the stories unearthed by the news sleuths. Amidst the melodramatic dents of the murder trial, Joan Blondell, although her activities have been the moving influence in the persecution, becomes convinced of the condemned woman's innocence. Facing the woman she has practically sent to her doom, she contrives to make her confess that her silence is shielding someone. In the clash between the two women, the underlying play for life and death is one of the dramatic high lights of the picture, and provides the solution to the mystery.