Evening star., 1953-05-07

dimension process is already on
the downgrade. It is the work
of Columbia Pictures, the first
of its kind. and it has the
shapelessneSs Of f1nger-painting
by a child Of pre-kindergarten
age.
Man in the Dark" starring
Edmond O'Brien and Audrey
Totter, is a melodrama, as were
both Of its Sd predecessors.
One Of the big impressions it
creates in the mind Of the spec.
tator is that the first producer
who uses the depth-film process
on a simple landscape is going
to make a profit of seven million,
three hundred and thirty-flve
dollars.
The Keith film, in Natural
Vision Sepia tone, and requiring
polaroid glasses, is a hysterical
concoction of every horror gag
developed since the cinema's
peep-Show infancy.
Selling upon the new lens
trick Of squirting images off the
screen into the faces of the
audience, Man in the Dark"
goes positively berserk.
In one scene, it drops a brain
surgeons scalpel into the eye
Of the poor beholder. In an
other. it threatens his sight with
the lighted end Of a gangster's
cigar. In still others, a terrified
pigeon spurts off the screen and
q spider, possibly a black widow.
slithers into the faces of the
customers.
The cumulative impact of
these is not unlike that growing
out Of being hit in the face by
six custard pies.
y \ y II
The story which occasionally
Is allowed to interrupt this child
ish play by Director Lew Lam
ders and his technicians is not
the kind that normally would
be missed.
It's about a convict (O'Brien)
who earns a parole by lending
himself to IA surgical experiment.
This is the recently developed
frontal lobotomy operations, al
though no one in the film is fool
iSh enough to frighten the audi
ence with a medical phrase like
that.
Purpose of the operation Is
to correct O'Brien'S criminal ten
dencies but this is merely a
point of departure for the script
writer's who become much more
interested in the fact that the
patient forgets where he hid
10000 stolen dollars. This, they
imply, is whale of a lot Of
money to give up just to become
q good citizen.
In this, they have the
idea for a good old-fashioned
I'D movie, but no doubt moth
ing will ever come of it.
w.
The players in Man in the
Dark" perform in the daze which
apparently is characteristic Of
those. trapped in the new film
process. They act like humans
who know they are less dramatic
than spiders or pigeons disturbed
in sleep.
1t is the latter. they realize,
that the director and cameramen
are truly concerned with and
this can be discouraging even
to the most insensitive per-
former, which describes most of
those in Man in the Dark"
Below O'Brien and Miss Tot
ter on the cast list is a collec-
tion Of those nameless frights
who have been seen in six dozen
gangSter pictures in the last
year and one-half. In Man
in the Dark" they are simply
pulling another job.
Miss Totter'S reaction to the
sight Of herself in the films ex-
ira dimension is one that has
not been revealed to the world.
The suspicion left by the film on
an outsider is that she must
have been acutely shocked and
left longing for the day before
technicians began to tamper
with cameras.
\
From the drama departments
mail.
Dear Mr.. Carmody: Sorry
you missed fire on Arms and
the Man at the Arena. You also