The Mind Reader

A trio of con artists (Warren William, Allen Jenkins and Clarence Muse) travels from city to city in middle America swindling suckers with a bogus mind reading act featuring William as "Chandra the Great," complete with turban and crystal ball. We the screen audience get to see the trickery behind his apparent clairvoyance, but a pretty, unemployed stenographer (Constance Cummings) is not so fortunate, and besotted with William's talents, joins his itinerant enterprise. Eventually she finds out what is really going on, but by then it's too late because she has fallen in love with her employer, and he with her.

To elaborate further would spoil the impact of this unusual pre-Code film, but I will say that its chief problem is that Cummings is just too smart to be as innocently unaware of certain things as the screenplay tries to make her, so we stop taking the story seriously. However, there remains much witty and mature dialogue, striking cinematography, and this interesting group of performers.

William gets the opportunity to play the on- and offstage modes of his character and also makes the most of an extended drunk scene. Cummings, largely wasted here, projects a tart intelligence that is probably more than the role deserves. Jenkins, the eternal sidekick, gets a generous share of the verbal zingers and Muse's role goes beyond the subservient nonsense usually assigned to black supporting players at that time. Mayo Methot, the future Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, appears briefly as a grief-deranged victim of Chandra's charlatanry.

Like so many feature films of the early 30's, this one moves along briskly so that none of its improbabilities have time to sink in and ruin the fun.

Warren William turns in a superb performance. Allen Jenkins, always fun if a bit tedious in later comic gangster tales, does fine. The fine black actor Clarence Muse is given a meaty role and does beautifully by it. And Constance Cummings, whom I saw several decades after this in a magnificent performance on Broadway, is excellent.

This is a dark, twisting tale. William is a grifter who's tried a few rackets before he hits on mind reading. He and Jenkins pull some shady business in Cummings's hometown (emphasis on town) but she falls for him. She thinks he's the real thing, for a while, and he tries hard to go straight for her.

There is no wrong move. It's taut and disturbing. Roy del Ruth was a sensationally good director at this time, though this is darker than what he generally worked with.

No happy Hollywood ending is slapped on. William is seen about to pay for his evil ways but it sure doesn't look as if he is going to get a last-minute reprieve, nor does he seem particularly changed in his soul.

Keep an eye out for this one!

A con-man works his way up the fortune-telling ladder only to find his life is not made better.

The con-man role is tailor made for the commanding Warren William. His Chandra The Fortune Teller is such a masterful stage presence who in the audience would dare challenge his psychic gift. Never mind that his shifty confederate Frank (Jenkins) is feeding him answers telephonically. It makes for a heckuva show, and the rubes keep coming, sometimes ruefully so. Oddly, I found myself being anxious when there's problems with the messaging relay from Frank. That is, do I really want Chandra to succeed in his criminal con job. Yet I couldn't help being torn. Anyway, notice in passing, how the map shows Chandra first touring smaller border state towns, nothing big yet. That will come later, once he hones his act. Cummings (Sylvia) makes an attractive love interest, even if the script presents her flip-flops in a pretty implausible light. Also, the familiar Allen Jenkins plays his part pretty straight, unlike many of his comedic side-kick parts.

Now, you might think, courtesy the screenplay, that every upper-class husband in New York has a silken mistress, leaving a broken-hearted wife behind. Then too, I suspect that dark suspicion played well with Depression era audiences. But once Chandra goes big-time, there are no more rubes, only the sleek and well upholstered. Frankly, I didn't like the big turnaround that comes last. After all, this is pre-Code, so abject mea-culpa endings aren't required as they soon would be. Up to that point, the story really deserves a climax more ironic than the implausibly conventional. (Check out the similar Nightmare Alley {1947} for a more apt ending.)

Anyway, William has to be one of the neglected delights of that long ago period. Passing away in 1948 means he had no post-war credits to speak of. Thus he's largely unknown even to many old movie fans. It's that pre-Code period, before his serial programmers (Perry Mason, the Lone Wolf), where he really shines, usually as an ethically challenged big-wig (Employee's Entrance {1933}; Skyscraper Souls {1932}). And there's no one better. Plus, he's good enough here to make even the flawed, albeit interesting, script well worth watching.

This early film is rarely seen these days. Thanks to TCM, we had the opportunity to watch it. As directed by Roy Del Ruth, the film tackles the problem of the itinerant con men running wild all over the country peddling home remedies and even serving as dentists to a naive public that were easily swindled.

At the center of the story, we see a man that discovers how to make a fast buck by giving readings to unsuspecting folks for a dollar. It's the cruelest of the scams because unsuspecting people put faith in the predictions these charlatans have to offer. We get to know the fate of one woman who comes back to tell Chandra how his reading turned to be a tragedy for her.

Warren William plays the great Chandra with charm. He is totally convincing as the person who has the solution for every problem, for a price. Constance Cummings is Sylvia, the young girl whose life is changed by Chandra. Allen Jenkins plays Chandra's assistant in one of his best roles. We get to see briefly Mayo Methot in the pivotal role of Jenny.

I'm a real sucker for movies about fake psychics and occult scammers, and "The Mind Reader" makes for a very fine entry in that sparsely populated genre. Warren William really gets to muck it up as a skeevy huckster who makes his money as a traveling fortune teller. Always one one step ahead of the simple-minded authorities, he never stays long enough in one whistlestop town for his parlor tricks to get exposed. When he falls for Constance Cummings, he begins to seriously question some of his life choices.

Although the tone is rather jaunty compared to something like "The Spiritualist" or "Nightmare Alley", there are a few dramatic moments showing the moral peril and self-centeredness inherent to psychic swindling. William has one great dramatic moment where he breaks down on stage in Mexico, drunkenly abusing the crowd while showing a truly hideous side of his personality. It's one of his finer bits of acting. The film also looks great, with plenty of imaginative angles and vivid lighting that emphasize Chandra's crooked nature.