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I love this movie so much

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Edgy Pre-Coder with a Number of Memorable Scenes and Some Interesting Camera Shots. Warren William Plays a Sleazy Huckster who Could Con the Feathers off a Pigeon but Could Not Sell a Brush to Keep from Starving.A Fine Cast and a Carnival Atmosphere with a Second Act Demeaning Rich Folks as Adulterous Asses (typical for Films in the depression) and Deserving of the Exposing that the "Mind Reader" Lays Out for the Suspecting Wives.In Support, there is the Beautiful Constance Cummings as the Love Interest and Allen Jenkins as a Bombastic and Loud Mouthed Sidekick. It's a Good Entertainment with a Sombre Theme and Enough Angst to Make it a Winner. Most of the Pre-Code Stuff comes from Implication and Dialog. References to Underage Girls being Preyed Upon and Other Nastiness. The Ending is a Double Edge Contrivance and may Sit Differently Depending on Personal Expectations. A Powerful Movie but there is One Similar Film that is even Better, Creepy, and Navarious. Nightmare Alley (1942), One of the Best Film-Noir and Starring an Unlikely Tyrone Power.

Constance Cummings was one of the most beautiful ingenues of the early thirties and the bonus was she could really act. "The Mind Reader" was typical of the Warner Bros. pre-coders, this one tackling the charlatans and phoney mediums that drifted through the country carnivals eager to con innocent folk out of their hard earned money. Warren Williams plays one of those who, along with his crooked buddies (Allan Jenkins and Clarence Muse) go from town to town - pulling teeth in Pine Bluff, selling hair tonic in Nashville but in Topeka they find a new racket and now, posing as "Chandra the Great - Mind Reader", he is out to "tell the chumps what they want to hear"!!Pretty Sylvia (Cummings) is one he advises "a great change will be coming into your life" - the next night she is employed as his secretary and it is her job to answer the hundreds of letters he receives from people begging him for advice. Things come crashing down when Jenny (Mayo Methot, in yet another dynamic performance), bursts in to tell him that his advice of rejecting the man she really loved wrecked both their lives!! Sylvia then realises that her husband (yes, she is now married to him) is a despicable fake and feels the only way their love can survive is for him to go straight.The second half of the movie sees him embracing a new racket, as selling brushes may be honest but financially unrewarding. A chance meeting with Jenkins, who is now a chauffeur to a cheating couple (Natalie Moorehead is the wife) sees Chandra become a very up-market spiritualist whose clients are happy to pay thousands to catch out their cheating spouses.Constance Cummings gave all her parts intelligence - even if it was there or not. By the mid 1930s she was being hailed as the next big emotional star but she had already secured life long happiness by marriage to Ben Levy and by the end of the thirties was happily living in England. In any other actress's hands Sylvia would have seemed a bit of a twit - blindly marrying him and then not realising he was the famous mind reader that the whole city was talking about (didn't she wonder where all the extra money was coming from)!!! There is a confrontation with an angry client in his office and he blows down to Mexico leaving Sylvia to bear the blame of the shooting. Warren William does what he does so well, playing a ruthless crook who, nevertheless, has sparks of redeeming qualities, enough so the ending isn't a surprise. One of the "conned" woman is Ruthelma Stevens, so good as the perfect secretary in "The Circus Queen Murder".

Mind Reader, The (1933) *** (out of 4) Excellent performances highlight this Warner drama about a con man (Warren William) and his assistant (Allen Jenkins) who travel town to town with a circus doing various acts to bring in money. They then notice that the mind reader gag will bring in the most and soon the alias "Chandra" starts pulling people in but there's going to be a price to pay. I had heard so many positive things about this movie that it quickly became one that I searched out and thankfully got to see due to a recent TCM showing. Fans of classic cinema should certainly keep their eyes open for this one as it lives up to its reputation and also delivers some incredible performances. The film is pretty much divided into two halves with the first one dealing with various cons being performed by William. I found all of these games to be incredibly entertaining due in large part to William being able to push them over. It's very important that we believe these cons could actually be pushed over on people and William is so good here that it's never a problem. He slides into this role and never looks back and there's no a single frame in the film where we don't believe what he's doing and saying. Constance Cummings plays the woman he eventually falls in love with and the two share some great moments together and really make their love story believable. The underrated Jenkins does a very good job as well as he has several nice comic moments. The biggest surprise comes from future Bogart wife Mayo Methot who nearly steals the film as a young woman who is given bad advice and comes to let William know about it. I won't spoil what happens but it's pretty unforgettable and she really nails the part. I think the film begins to lose some of its power during the final twenty-five minutes with the last scam starts to be too big and of course there's going to be a moral lesson to pay. Up until then the film is extremely fast, fun and most important features some terrific acting. This film certainly deserves to be better known and hopefully TCM will start to show it more often.

The ever affable Warren William stars as the title character, a traveling carny who engages in crooked confidence scams with his colleagues Frank and Sam (Allen Jenkins and Clarence Muse). He falls for one of his victims, a charming young thing played by the beautiful Constance Cummings, who gets her man back on the straight and narrow--only to find him falling off the wagon when a new job hawking brushes door-to-door doesn't quite pan out. Thanks to Stephen Sondheim, this classic 'B' feature returned to television recently, and it's quite a revelation. Filled with pre-Code flavor, including references to the Mann Act, drug abuse, and oodles of adultery, The Mind Reader is far from being a one-trick pony: it also features a well developed screenplay by Robert Lord and Wilson Mizner, impressive expressionistic photography by the reliable Sol Polito, and some stunning art deco set design by Robert Haas. It all comes together beautifully thanks to director Roy Del Ruth, but the real revelation for me was the acting of Ms. Cummings--still with us as I write this! Besides looking radiant, she delivers a tour-de-force performance as the put upon Sylvia, whose innocence soon turns to anger and resignation when she realizes the true nature of her husband's work. As would be expected, William and Jenkins are both excellent, and Muse gets a sizable and generally dignified role as well. For any number of reasons, this is a wonderful relic of 1930s cinema that needs to get a DVD release. Happily, TCM's print has been well preserved and looks as good or better than any big budget classic from the period.