When Robert Montgomery has the screen to himself, "The Saxon Charm" threatens to become a solid, intelligent film. Montgomery plays the part of the villainous Broadway producer Matt Saxon with skill and variety and as much subtlety as the script allows. Saxon in supposed to be the kind of domineering psychopath who wraps his will around everybody in his path, and drains them of individuality. He barges into their private lives, insulting, fascinating, and usually ruining them. That's the theoretical Saxon, at any rate.

Montgomery tries hard to give the impression that Saxon is this formidable character, but he is boxed in by a bunch of wooden actors and actresses, situations that are generally picayune, and dialogue that is crumby. So, in spite of Montgomery, Saxon fails to frighten anybody, and his machinations have the air of pattiness.

In the story (taken from Frederic Wakeman's novel), a successful novelist writes a play about Moliere, which the great Saxon agrees to produce. Under the waspish direction of Saxon, the novelist rewrites and rewrites, losing his artistic independence. The writer's wife feels that Saxon's tyrannical influence is lousing up her home life, and takes a tearful step toward Reno. But after a series of contretemps, Saxon's theatrical enterprises crash, the novelist nimbly leaps aside to the arms of his missus--and Saxon latches on leech-like to another victim.

John Payne, as the novelist, just hasn't got enough screen personality to make Saxon's dominion over him seem worthwhile. The wife, Susan Hayward, registers tender anxiety throughout without much success, and Audrey Totter, as Saxon's girl friend has to cope with the sort of "I-love-him-the-brute" part which was thoroughly explored by Clara Bow a long time ago.

The second feature is an ordinary Western, but it contains an incredible number of point-blank gun duels in which nobody is even scratched. Gimleteyed William S. Hart would have knocked off the entire rustling population with that much ammunition.