Silver Screen (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

56 THE THRILLING STORY OF AN Avenger HO Found Love FROM the elevated approach to the great bridge one could see the vast panorama of rooftops and towers that crowd onto Manhattan island. It spread under the drizzling winter sky as far as the eye could follow, this seething, crawling human ant hill. Millions of men. millions of struggling lives, millions of dreams. The man who stared do^vn at it had his dream. It had led him there from all across dusty America, thumbing his way on the roads, riding the rods on the freight trains, living by the free soup kitchens and the suftrance of the hobo jungles. He was young, just past his majority. A lean,, browned man with the eyes of a dreamer, dark eyes that ivere lighted by fanatical devotion to one idea. The chilly wind ^vhipped his ragged clothing. It crept through the rotted fabrics and burned his flesh. The icy rain soaked him. He ^vas not a\vare of it. Someivhere among those millions down there \\as one man he had come far to find— one truth he must wring from that man's lips. Mio Romagna, foUoiving the tragic purpose of his life had come to clear a dead man's name. That inan had died sixteen years ago in the electric chair. The crime for which Bartolomio Romagna paid the penalty was the murder of a factory paymaster. All those sixteen years his son believed in his innocence. Sixteen years later the dean of a famous university law school, reviewing the old case as an academic exercise, became convinced that Mio Romagna's father had died an innocent man. The court had refused to hear a witness whose testimony would have named the real murderer. The ne\vspapers of Airrerica gave wide. publicity to this opinion by an expert and so it came to the ears of Romagna's son, bringing him thousands of miles to seek out Garth Esdras and compel that forgotten witness to speak the truth. Standing on the great bridge, faced -^vith the immensity of the city, Mio sa'iv the hopelessiress of his search, but the fanatical purpose in his heart was not cooled. Garth Esdras '\vas therel He would be found! Just beneath him was the river's edge and the huddled roofs of the lo^vest shuns. In the shadow of one of the great stone abuttments that supported the bridge, was an open space, a square formed by the tenements on three sides, the river on the fourth. A stair opened from ^vhere Mio stood and winding around the masonry made an exit to the square below. Halfway down the shadowy steps he saw a figure that held his attention. A girl huddled against the stair rail, her slight body abandoned to grief. The utter despair of her pose cried aloud to his s\mpathy and beckoned him to join her. ■■\Vhat's the matter, kid?" She raised her head from her arms. Mio looked into a pale, tragic face and saw sweetness and beauty there. Her littleness One of the many dramatic scenes in "'^X'interset." (Left to right) Mi liamiie Esdras (Margo), Garth Esdras (Paul G u i 1 f o y I e ) , Trock Estrella (Ediiardo Ciannelli), Mio Romagna (Burgess Meredith), the cider Esdras (Maurice Moscovitch) and Judge Gaunt (Edward Ellis). Margo and Burgess Meredith, who played the leads in the stage production on Broadway for months, are the stars of the screen play. somehow made him ache to help licr. She A\"as shrinking from him "Nothing, nothingi" she gasped, ans^vering his rpiestions. She ivould have run a^\av from him. He put his hand on her arm, genth. "I'm sorry." "For ^siiatr" she asked amazed. "That vou're unhappy." She looked at him beivildered. "Wasn't iinhap23iness the common lot? "It's all right, " she muttered. "You're unhappy, too." "How do you kno\s' that? " "I just looked at you. That's all. Can I help?" In all his years of vagrant wandering nobody had ofiered help. She ^vas just a kid, shabby and ill noinished, yet she had such riches of heart she Avould share -with himi "'Who are vou?" he gasped. She shook her head. Her eyes had a frightened gleam. "No one. Just a girl you