Evening star., 1934-08-18
w YHEN Alexander wollcott and
~ George Kaufman had 1.-THE
wv Dark Tower" on Broadway

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AI George Kaufman had 1.-THE
wv Dark Tower" on Broadway
last season. they pleaded
with audiences not to re-
veal the secret of its mystery. There
is murderer in the play, and one
was meant to be greatly surprised on
discovering his identity.
On the contrary, the film manu-
facturers who converted "The Dark
Tower" into a picture called THE
Man With Two Faces" and sent it to
Warner Bros Earle this week, ap-
parently sat up nights worrying lest
every one in the audience would not
know Just exactly who the slayer was
before he pulled of his phoney beard
and revealed himself
They started out by attempting to
give away the secret in the cinema
title. Then they cast Edward G.
Robinson as Damon Wells, the char
acter actor whose sister is under the
malevolent influence of an extrav-
agantly vicious husband.
Mr.. Robinson's mannerisms would
be recognizable if he played a blood
hound in Uncle Toms Cabin" and
certainly no one was going to be de-
ceived by mere French accent, a
pair of gray gloves and few whiskers.
In other words, the Hollywood mar
rators Of THE Dark Tower" decided
to tell the story backward, a tech
nique which in the end is the only
mystifying thing about yarn that
was supposed to keep you agog with
wonder until the time came for all to
be told. For that reason, The Man
With Two Faces" is very mild stuff,
interesting only because the villain,
Stanley Vance, is SO refreshingly evil.
It seems that Stanley Vance held a
hypnotic power over the beautiful
JeSsica Wells, an actress whose charms
subsided into daZed doldrums when he
was around. Interested4in the profits
of her career. he nevertheless defeated
his own ends because she could imi-
tate nothing more exciting than a
mummy when he dwelt at hand.
He disappeared, was reported dead
and JesSica became herself again, as
they say. She was about to return to
the boards in play called THE Dark
Tower" when who should pop UP but
Stanley, obnoxious as ever Stanley
does not fit about the screen min
utes before every one in the audience
joins the Wells family in hearty de-
sire to strangle him. 1t is worth wait
ing around just to see Ricardo Cortez
make an attempt, which is unhappily
interrupted, and finally to watch STAN
ley gag and die of poisoning.
Louis Calhern, as the husband of
unbounded nuisance value, seemed to
us at times less sinister than bother
some, but if one may believe reports,
he was a bastard of great talents.
Mary Astor is cleverly cast as JesSica,
the actress, who merely stares and
stares when her husband turns on the
old hypnosis.
The pretty little love passages be-
tween Robinson and Mae Clarke, as
his unhappy girl, are about as satisfy
ing as anything else to be found in
the film.
The stage show at the Earle this
week is topped by the California Col
legians, whose differing violence are
as funny as Frank and Milt Britton's,
If somewhat more familiar. The COL
legians initiated everything from
trained seals to elephants in Fifty
Million Frenchmen"; were ancient
athletes in ''Three's A Crowd" and are
amusing wherever you have or will
see them. They have in their crew a
tall, blond gentleman whose magnifi-
cent impersonations of Stokowski and
singing of The Tatooed Lady" will
especially please you.
Lew Druthers and two competent
blond young women open the vaude-
vile bill with some very neat STEP