Words struck harshly last night. The audience winced at Hemingway's terse sentences full of meaning. For two hours they sat through unreal seenes torn from the Spanish, Civil War, through rape, death, and gory descriptions. There were ideals and ideas involved and both came off second best. The final curtain left many persons unimpressed or at best uncertain.

"The Fifth Column" has the makings of a great play, but a present it contains little more than raw materials. To his forceful hatred of Fascism Hemingway has added a love story which amounts to little more than that. The romance does not seem real; it certainly has no vital connection with the rest of the ideas in the play. Clothing this poorly-wedded couple is Hemingway's command of the English language. Yet clothes do not make the play.

It takes fully five minutes of the first scene to forget the conscious striving for verbal effect and throughout the evening there are constant reminders that this is Hemingway speaking, he of the fresh, young, modern, American prose style. His dialogue is excellent in many sections of the play. But it frequently becomes obtrusive, thereby ending its usefulness and going so far as to detract from the play itself. Here is a case where conscious striving for effect has killed the effect itself.

The uniformly excellent cast has made the best of this poor script. Franchot Tone was a treat; his acting had vigor and was convincing. A few more performances should overcome the few Hollywood histrionics left in his performances. Lee Cobb may be called the conscience of the drama. He conveys the futility and emotional vehemence of a man fighting for his ideals. Everywhere he is frustrated; at times, sad to relate, by the script itself which does not permit an adequate expression of his pent-up spleen.

Katherine Locke, as an American girl in search of her dead brother, is convincing. Lenore Ulric plays a Moorish tart with the utmost of abandon and pidgin English. Don Morrison, the comical hotel manager, provides one of the brighter spots of the evening.