If You Could Read My Mind...

 (imdb)

THE MIND READER-1933-A carnival huckster (Warren William) becomes “The Great Chandra”, a phony fortune teller. He's assisted by Frank (Allen Jenkins) and Sam (Clarence Muse). He meets pretty unemployed stenographer Sylvia (Constance Cummings) and hires her as his secretary. They start to fall in love, even after she discovers his mind reading act is phony. In a town where fortune telling is illegal, he helps the local sheriff by predicting a jewel robbery (he sent it up!). Later a woman (Mayo Methot) accuses Chandra of ruining her life with his “predictions”. When she commits suicide, Sylvia decides to leave him. He gives up the racket for her and becomes a brush salesman in NYC. 

Frank, now a chauffeur, gets Chandra involved in a new scheme exposing cheating husbands with his “power”. He's very successful behind Sylvia's back but he accidentally kills a disgruntled husband with Sylvia right outside his office. Somehow, she's arrested and put on trial for the killing. Chandra hides out in Mexico, drunk and guilt ridden. He exposes his whole act in front of an audience. Then he goes back to NY, confesses, exonerates Sylvia and tries to divorce her but she sticks by him. Final line: “It sure is tough to be going away just when beer is coming back”. 

The Mind Reader was directed by Roy Del Ruth (PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (1954)) who made the original version of THE MALTESE FALCON in 1931. His last feature film was THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE in 1959.

The Hilton Sisters

CHAINED FOR LIFE-1952-The stars of this low budget morality tale are The Hilton Sisters, Daisy and Violet, the real life Siamese twins who were in Tod Browning's FREAKS way back in 1932.

In CHAINED they basically play themselves but are called Vivian and Dorothy, the famous Hamilton sisters as this is not really a biography. It begins with one of the sisters being charged with murder. They tell their life story to the judge and jury in flashbacks. They sing a song and are signed to a Vaudeville act. Their manager Hinkley (Allen Jenkins) cooks up a phony romance angle with Dorothy and the greasy Andre (Mario Laval), a target shooter for the publicity. Unfortunately Dorothy really falls for the gold digging Andre which ticks off not only sister Vivian but Andre's girlfriend Renee' (Patricia Wright). He seems sincere at first, even singing a (terrible) song over the phone! But he's two timing her. Dorothy has a weird dream where she is no longer attached to her sister and she and Andre dance in a garden (this scene is well done with a double). They go see Dr. Thomas so they can have an operation and be separated but after much soul searching decide against it. Instead Dorothy decides to marry Andre but 27 states deny them a license! A blind minster finally helps them. Later it's discovered Vivian killed Andre. This causes a courtroom dilemma for the judge.

I'm sure it was a unique feature for the time but very cheaply made and the acting (except for Jenkins) and direction are atrocious. The director Harry L. Fraser also made THE WHITE GORILLA.

Thanks for reading!