Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-02-06
ALIAS JIMMY
VALENTINE IS
GRIPPING DRAMA
Sermon in Stripes That Moves
Audience in Quite Un-
usual Fashion

Alias Jimmy Valentine" is a safe
cracking sermon in four acts, with
stripes for scenery and iailbirds, re-
formed and otherwise. as the central
figures in an intensely human drama
of absorbing interest
Crude but powerful, driving straight
to the point with palpable stage
articles and yet gaining this point be-
cause of the force of primal emotions,
Alias Jimmy Valentine" is a play
that grips audiences with hardly a
relaxation for an occasional ray of
comedy. The audience that saw the
opening of the play last night at the
Biiou was moved more than any audi
ence that has yet patronized the
Worlds Fair Stock Company. Even
THE Third Degree failed to get
over" as does this somewhat kindred
drama of the criminal and the law.
The theme of an inexorable, cynical
law that tends to perpetuate crime in
stead of curing the criminal by pun
ishment is the theme of Alias Jimmy
Valentine, that and love that is
greater even than the habits of the
crook and the outlaw, greater than
the prison that drags down instead
Of lifting up. The story Of Jimmy
Valentine, expert safe-cracker and
burglar, may be briefly told. He is
serving ten years in Sing Sing prison
when a little group Of humanitarians
visit the institution. One Of them, a
young girl, Rose Lane, daughter Of
Lieut.. Gov. Lane, recognizes in Val
entine a man who had shielded her
from the insults of bully on train
some years before. Believing him In
nocent, enlisting the sympathy and
support of her father, she secures Val
entine's freedom. He enters her
fathers bank and rises rapidly. But
the cynical suspicion Of the law, dogs
him, and finally detective whom he
had defied works up a case that will
probably send Valentine back to
prison. Three years have passed and
Doyle has not been able to locate his
man. He finally does So. By q clever
ruse,. with faxed picture and news
paper account written about his
cousin, Valentine or Lee Randall con-
vinces Doyle, when the latter visits
the bank, that it is case of mistaken
identity. Doyle is leaving when the
Waterman of the bank PUSHES in, with
the horrifying information that little
Ifive-year-old Kitty, Roses sister, has
been accidentally locked In Q, new
lvauft Just being built and, To which no
one has the combination. Then
comes the supreme moment for Valen.
tine.
He knows his ability to open the
safe. He knows, too, that if he does
open it, Doyle, who has not left the
bank, will realize that the young
banker is the former jaiibird he has
sworn to get" Valentine hesitates
moment only. Then his decision is
made and made for the sake Of the
little girl and with the knowledge that
it means his own ruin. He opens the
safe.
Now the drama, if held to the finish,
would probably take Valentine back
to prison. But there is no such un.
happy ending. The detective is moved
to quite unsleuthlike emotion and de-
parts, blessing the ex-convict, who,
of course, is by this time in the arms
Of the girl whose love has reformed
him. For naturally Miss Rose Lane
has been getting deeper in love with
the jailbird-banker every day of the
three years since she got him out of
prison.
The story is not always convincing,
nor does it always ring true as told
on the stage. But the drama has a
driving power that rides over improb-
abilities. There is, besides, just
enough of likelihood in the plot to
bear out the realistic details of the
execution. The scene in Sing Sing
prison is comparable to the famous
third degree" scene in the play OF
that name, depicting remorseless po-
lice brutality with the most vivid of
colors. alias Jimmy Valentine" is
good deal of a melodrama. You
pray for the hero and shudder at what
may befall him; you fall in love with
the heroine; you hate and hiss the vii
lains. Both the detective, played ad-
mirably by Howard Nugent, and the
prison warden, Rodney Brandt, arouse
the liveliest of antipathies In the
breasts of the audience. The parts
are detestable, and detestably we'll
done.
John Wray is a more than compe-
tent Jimmy Valentine. Opinions may
vary as to the effect of rather too
much boyishness in a young man
whose hair has been whitened by
terrible prison experience, but in the
moments of stronger emotion he was
capable and always held the sympathy
of the audience 1t is one of his best
portrayals, which is saying a good
deal. Miss Brissac, the lieutenant
governors daughter. has a role of no
great strength. Her part is the al
most passive part of the women whose
silent love must hold Valentine steady.
Many of her lines are bordering on
the insipid. Miss Brissac herself re-
deems the part from flatness.
There is a great deal of clever and
faithful work done in small roles in