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Show Salt Lake Theater Audience Sees "The Knife" Eugene Walter's Melodrama, Melo-drama, Minus Humor, Presented Pre-sented Last Night. rpHE KNIFE" cuts deeper than the usual melodrama and for that reason rea-son it is sometimes more painful. Ho in-ent in-ent was Eugene Walter upon developing lis big Idea and giving it all the thrills t could bear thai lie forgot about the :omlc relief which our ancestors consid-;red consid-;red proper in every well-constructed nelodrama. The villain could not villain-ze villain-ze nor the hero heroize unless accompanied accom-panied by the mirth and laughter of high, ow and middling comedians. We may sneer at these old-fashioned concoctions sv-hieh provided for a certain number of aughs for every curse of the villain, ivery soul-yearn of the hero and every ivail of the willowy heroine, but we can "emember how relieved we were at some :ense moment to discover that our nerves ivere not to be wracked further ana mat we could indulge in the consoling luxury Df a laugh. You will find thrills abundant !n "The Knife," which was presented at the Salt Lake theater last night and you will be impressed with the originality and power Df the theme, but you will miss the occasional oc-casional let-down of comedy. Not that Lhe playwright has entirely neglected to puncture the thrills with mirth, but he has done it in such a way that we feet he I is trying to have It oyer with as quickly as possible, so that he may return to the magic and er.thrallment of the big idea. Walter has imagined a great doctor whose fiancee has been wronged by a gang of men and women criminals who pose as fortune tellers, so that they may iure women to their moral destruction. The doctor is aided in finding his drugged, kidnaped and wronged fiancee by a law-ver law-ver friend of his who Is a criminal Investigator. Investi-gator. The search for the girl and the method by which her two chief abductors are trapped furnishes all the dramatic excitement ex-citement of a detective story. The final act reveals the punishment of the criminals crimi-nals a man and a woman by the doctor. doc-tor. He has been on the verge of a discovery dis-covery that will cure a certain disease and thus bring happiness into millions of lives and be a priceless boon to future generations. He has experimented on animals an-imals and met with success, but he must have human bodies to work with. With the aid of his friends he abducts the criminals In defiance of the law, places them in his laboratory and experiments upon them. He kills a woman, but learns enough by her death to effect a cure upon the man and thus demonstrate the absolute abso-lute success of the discovery. The attempt of the doctor and his fellow fel-low conspirators to escape the tolls of the law which a young assistant district attorney at-torney is weaving about them makes the final act super-exciting. In the end all the cleverlv laid plans of the criminal investigator in-vestigator to clear the doctor, himself and the others of this noble band of slayers fail and they are compelled to throw themselves them-selves upon the mercy of the assistant district attorney. Their story and the storv of the wronged woman persuades the nroseeutor that a higher justice than l he law's has been administered and he locks the secret In las own breast. The pla will be repeated tonight and will he sen again tomorrow at an afternoon after-noon and fuelling- performance. DRAMA iXD VAUDEVILLE. SALT LAKE -Tonight and Saturday ' night, Saturday matinee, Eugene Walter's thrilling drama, "The Knife." ORPHEUM Patriotic spectacle, "America First," heads new bill now i running. Two shows dally. PANTAGES New vaudeville bill now on. headed by Pauline Barri In "Miss Hamlet." Afternoon and night. i WILKES All this week. Wilkes play-era play-era tn "The Spendthrift." Matinee I tomorrow afternoon. ! LIBERTY Hippodrome vaudeville; i six feature acts, headed by four ! old veterans. Three shows daily. MOTION PICTURES. PARAMOUNT-EMPRESS Wallace Reld In "The Hostage," Burton Holmes's Easy Chair Travels. AMERICAN Today, Bessie Jove in "Polly Ann." ! STRAND Today. "The Clock." j MET-TES Y All -comedy day. Charlie Chaplin: Charles Hoyt's "A Do in j the Manger"; Vitagraph comedy. |