Cinema -:- THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER -:- Drama

Helmeted and handsome, a London policeman incautiously pauses before a hedge, groans, contorts his face, sinks lifeless to the pavement Europe's most accomplished cracksman, dinner jacketed, cool, emerges from a casement window, catches sight of the officer still weltering bloodily on the hedge, hurries away, slightly ruffied by the event. Scotland Yard at last has a clew; if they find the cracksman who stole the $256,000 dollar diamond, they feel certain they will have the maniac swordsman who stuck the policeman from behind the hedge, who had killed four other police in almost as many nights, who had kept the newspapers in an orgy of headlines by his postcard warnings which preceded each crime: "TONIGHT. X."

Innocent of violent crime, the cracksman (Robert Montgomery) finds himself embarrassed by the possession of the pilfered jewel, refuses the entreaties of his accomplices to chuck it in the Thames instead he rescues the finance of Scotland Yard's commissioner's daughter from the charge of being Mr. X, falls in love with the daughter, attracts the attention and suspicion of the sleuths.

Betrayed by a henchman, the suave cracksman is beset by the police who search for X. How can he protect himself? He must find X, he cannily reasons. Moreover, if he finds X, he will be in a most strategic position to give up his evil ways and claim the boon of love which he had already won from the Commissioner's daughter.

AS the airs of spring cooled and freshened by melting snows of New Hampshire, troubled with the sound of nesting birds and sweetened with fragrance from bursting buds and flowing maple sap come to disturb the student at his desk, to stir him to forget book, to promulgate questionnaires if he is learned, to do other things if he is not, it is time for a movie like the Mystery of Mr. X. It combines the detective thriller which diverts the gray board scholar, with the bill-and-coo whimsy comedy so appropriate to our age, to this season. It is smoothly and skillfully done, at once grisly and delightful; if it leaves some questions unanswered, why ask questions!

Best avoid as much as possible of the vaudeville at the Orpheum, unless you enjoy Old Howard jokes done in Raymond ad dialect. There was one number on the bill which did not seem so bad, the work of Mr. Emile Borreo, who sings the Marsaillaise with a gusto, discreetly omitting the best stanza, "les bourgeoises a la lanterne..." For these things Mr. Robert Montgomery and Miss Elizabeth Allen are sufficient compensation