Page:The New Yorker 0002, 1925-02-28.pdf/14

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R. HOLBROOK BLINN, as Don Jose Maria Lopez y Tostado, and Miss Judith Anderson, as Dolores Romero, in Willard Mack's "The Dove," at the Empire Theatre. It is Mr. Be- lasco's third hit of the season.

Don Jose is a low, carnal-minded caballero with a 40-inch waist and oil-wells. Dolores is just a simple little blue-ribbon (i.e., undefiled) cabaret singer in the Purple Pigeon Café in Mexicana, Mexico. Fur- thermore, both are Mexicans. Dolores, however, has Seen the Light and loves an upright young American gambler (as who wouldn't in her place?) and Don Jose's hand-to-shoulder kisses (m-m-m-buss-m-m-m- buss-m-m-m) are extremely distasteful to her.

The audience is fooled into believing that it is witnessing a fine old-fashioned melodrama until the last two minutes of the play when the Big Surprise is sprung. The villain exhibits an inconsistency of char- acter, as no old-fashioned villain ever did,