Show FUGITIVE AUTHOR LIVES HIS STORY IN HIDING have you ever root met a fugitive author a real fugitive with a price on hla his head its an uncommon experience but its a very thrilling kind of rendezvous A long ride through the darkness on a rainy night three knocks on tho the door of a house in a side street in some suburban town the rattling of a bolt the opening of the door and there was robert E burns author of 1 I am a fugitive from a chain gang sounds like a scene in a movie it but it really happened burns Is in hiding biding in constant dread of extra ditino by the state from whose chain gangs ho he twice escaped and then wrote the book from which warner bros have made the now new picture starring paul muni burns himself the man whose tragic life story forms the warp and woof of the plot of 1 I am a fugitive from a chain gang has not yet seen the picture he Is still a fugitive he cannot show himself in public hence the long ride through the darkness tor for a rendezvous with the elusive author A smallish man with glasses Is robert E burns whom a sovereign state seeks to return to the chain gang as a criminal who has not yet served out his term of years for the theft of 0 a few dollars he Is a native ive of 0 brooklyn and he talks the brooklyn lingo but he is is a ma man ln of 0 wide reading a sell self educated i man much of 0 whose education in the ways of 0 life was received when he was in n the front line over there and he wrote his book himself he says in five days within two weeks after his last escape from the chain gang in ile he Is nervous and excitable and no wonder over his head hangs constantly the sword of 0 the law whose abuses lie he has revealed the other night stealing into now new york under cover ot of darkness lie he visited the plymouth theatre and met for or tile the first time paul muni wim who has re enacted burns own history in 1 I am a fugitive from a chain gang previously burns was out on tile the west coast when the picture was in preparation at the warner bros studios but he did not meet muni lie he had bad to leave in a hurry before the actor arrived burns said they had it in the papers in albuquerque before id even reached hollywood that I 1 was going there there it was in the headline fugitive on way to movie capital well there I 1 was for or a lew few days and then I 1 got the tip that it be healthy for or me much longer so I 1 took it on the lam and come back east P burns hopes that 1 I am a fugitive from a chain gang will bo be a groat great picture and will help not only to arouse the public to the abuses of 0 the chain gang system but will also help him in hla his fight tor for freedom it aint any fun un to live in hiding he be said eald he talked of war days when he served with the fourteenth engineers as early as july 1917 in france brigaded with the british forces iia talked ot of his experiences on coming home lomo to brooklyn when he found hla his prewar pre war job gone then came days daya of 0 tramping of 0 hunger and desperation pe ration and the tragic affair into which he was inveigled and which resulted in his chain gang sentence his escape from the chain gang 7 years of honorable citizenship in chicago marriage through blackmail and then betrayal by hla his wife a second servitude nd a second escape and now the years ot of hiding ot all these things robert E burns talked ile he said 1 I hope ill III see tile the picture when it it comes out I 1 guess sometime ill so go into some neighborhood theatre and give it the once over but I 1 cant afford to take chances there was waa a knock on the door fro athe outside time was waa up 1 I got to get out of 0 here bald burns md ind away he went the interview was over |