The Man Who Played God

Montgomery Royle is a well known concert pianist. He is giving a private recital for a visiting monarch. A bomb goes off during the performance. The target was the ruler. Royle loses his hearing in the blast. His career ends with it. He returns to New York with his sister Florence, his close friend Mildred Miller and his much younger fiancée Grace Blair. For a while he can barely hold on. Then he finds that he can read lips. From his window he begins to watch Central Park. He learns what troubles the people down there. He starts helping them without giving his name, and the helping turns into a game he cannot put down. George Arliss leads and Bette Davis plays Grace Blair in the eighty minute film, an American production John G. Adolfi finished in 1932.