No Fairy Story Element In “One Way Passage”

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7284, 11 October 1933, Page 5

No Fairy Story Element In “One Way Passage”

FINE POWELL-FKANCIS DRAMA SCORNS CONVENTION

Most pictures with any pretensions whatever to a dramatic plot claim to he true to life; but most of them are so only up to a certain point. Always there is the inevitable fairy story conclusion —the sop of the romantic element in every audience. Because “One Way Passage” declines to how to convention its story is somewhat materialistic, its end bitterly ironical, but it will make a lasting impression on any who see it on October 25, at the Regent.

Admittedly, it is generally quite satisfying to know that Cinderella scored off the ugly sisters; but when a talkie arrives in which Eate has a. very perverse finger in the pic there should be no regrets; at least it i>s getting nearer to life when virtue is not always rewarded.

In any ease, what virtues there were in the characters played by William Powell and Kay Francis were mixed ones. Though the man Powell, killed mav richly have deserved his end, Powell has nevertheless broken a most important commandment; and Kay Francis’s broad path of high living and frequent cocktails must have led ultimately to destruction.

So when these two fall, in love immediately after embarking at HongICong the plot is indeed thick. r Kio one, shadowed constantly by a detective, is on his way to the gallows; it is doubtful if the other can survive the journey to the sanatorium in San Francisco. 'The Sword of Damocles hovers over the heads of both until it seems impossible to find a conventional solution. Each is ignorant of the other’s position and as both, in an. effort to forget, drift into a hopeless infatuation, the story becomes most interest-

ing. Powell never has anything but the entire sympathy of his audience. As a criminal he is a little too good to he true —polished, sincere and quite resigned to his own destiny, but most concerned for tho girl’s sake. There is an exciting interlude when, at Honolulu, two of his underworld cronies help him to elude the detective, but Fafo intervenes in a most unexpected quarter.

With Kav Francis sharing Powell’s abandonment, their love affair is a delightful part of the story. She creates a real atmosphere of hopelessness and uncertainty that makes excitement run high until her wonderful acting in a striking climax.