Claude Rains stars as Maximus in "The Clairvoyant," a British film from the Gainsborough studio which costars Fay Wray. Rains and Wray are a husband and wife team who have a mind-reading act that is dependent on a code (as I just saw demonstrated in the film "Nightmare Alley"). During a moment of anxiety on stage when his wife loses her way backstage and gets locked out, Maximus makes a prediction to the audience that turns out to be true. His new gift seems dependent on the presence of a newspaper owner's daughter (Jane Baxter) and also, though not pointed out in the film, being under great stress. His foreseeing of the future, however, seems more like a curse than a gift as it threatens his marriage, and he is incapable of stopping the trouble he sees ahead.
This is an old-fashioned, entertaining melodrama starring two people who had just become big stars, Rains (Invisible Man) and Wray (King Kong). Both are excellent, with Wray looking especially stunning. The script was written by Charles Bennett, who wrote for Hitchcock.
The curious thing about the movie was Robert Osborne's description of it on TCM, which didn't seem to jibe with the film itself. He states that the character of Maximus had predictions after terrible headaches, which I don't recall from the story, and that Maximus starts out as a con artist. A mind-reading act that describes an object being held as a fountain pen is not exactly a con, more like a parlor trick. It wasn't as if he had storefront where he took money for fortune telling.
That aside, it's interesting to see Rains and Wray in this 72-year-old film.
This is an old-fashioned, entertaining melodrama starring two people who had just become big stars, Rains (Invisible Man) and Wray (King Kong). Both are excellent, with Wray looking especially stunning. The script was written by Charles Bennett, who wrote for Hitchcock.
The curious thing about the movie was Robert Osborne's description of it on TCM, which didn't seem to jibe with the film itself. He states that the character of Maximus had predictions after terrible headaches, which I don't recall from the story, and that Maximus starts out as a con artist. A mind-reading act that describes an object being held as a fountain pen is not exactly a con, more like a parlor trick. It wasn't as if he had storefront where he took money for fortune telling.
That aside, it's interesting to see Rains and Wray in this 72-year-old film.