Playwright Frederick Knott has been rather unfair to Maurice Evans. For two acts of "Dial M For Murder", in which Evans stars this week at Cincinnati's Cox Theater, the author allows his actor to scheme a web that will trap the police into murdering his wife for him. It is an extreme pleasure to watch urbane and witty murderer go about his business with such delight. But in act three, Knott supplies Scotland Yard with much humor and some jokes, and poor Evans gets dumped. In all this, Evans is a terribly clever fellow. And fellows of this kind should be stopped by none but fellows of similar ilk. It would seem that all the other decent but less clever characters might be disposed of neatly by Evans. Instead, the defeated Evans is carted off to Newgate prison...

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