Mar 181935
 
three reels

Maximus (Claude Rains) performs a mind-reading act with the assistance of his wife, Rene (Fay Wray). They travel with an aging partner (Ben Field) and Maximus’s mother (Mary Clare). When a performance falls apart, he receives an actual prophecy. Predicting the future casts him into the limelight, which brings money but starts to pull his family apart. It’s soon clear that his power only works when he is around Christine (Jane Baxter), the daughter of a newspaper tycoon.

British films of the ‘30s seemed to be a year or two behind those of Hollywood with regard to technique. And this is a low-budget flick, making it even more primitive. That doesn’t make it bad, and a majority of the shots look good, but it’s simpler than it should be in ’35. A scene of a calamity in a mine is effective, and probably used up half the budget. The dialog is audible, so the sound is good enough, but that’s about all it manages.

The story is more drama and romance than horror, even with its supernatural elements. The power is promoted as being frightening, with both the mother and wife feeling it will destroy Maximus, and there’s even the suggestion that it comes from the Devil, though it never seems problematic in an objective way. Rather it is more an issue that it may break up relationships. Certainly it instigates changes in Maximus, but the focus is on how this could drive a wedge between him and Rene, mainly in the form of Christine. Making Rene insanely jealous before she has reason to be undercuts the weight of that (and come on, she’s Fay Wray, the hottest woman in any room she enters). I am pleased they didn’t make Christine an evil temptress—something I would have expected from a thirties melodrama.

While the drama and romance are engaging, the pull here is the cast. Clare, Wray, Field, and Baxter are superior to the material (in ascending order), but it’s Rains that takes it to a higher level. It’s rare to see him in the lead, and a crime he didn’t get the top spot more often. He was arguably the greatest character actor of all time and all his skills work as well in the lead spot. He was famous for his voice, and he puts it to good use, purring or commanding, or sometimes both. It’s a pleasure just to hear him speak. He can go from calm and reasonable to wild and insane in a few seconds and I believe it all. Rains makes Maximus sympathetic, genuine, gentle, and fierce—a multilayered performance for a multilayered character. The film in general is a 2-Star, and Rains’s performance is a 4-Star, so I’ll call it a 3-Star picture.