SOURCE: A review of From Nine to Nine, in The Saturday Review, London, Vol. 143, No. 3727, April 2, 1927, pp. 527-28.

In the following excerpt, Hartley reviews From Nine to Nine and suggests that readers who enjoyed The Marquis of Bolivar may be disappointed by the comparative plot and character limitation of this harsh psychological drama.

Imagine a nightmare beset by two kinds of misery—first, the misery of having to do a thing against time, and secondly, of being always thwarted when success is in sight—and you have the theme of From Nine to Nine. Stanislaus Demba wanted some money to take him and the girl he loved for a trip abroad. He needed it at once, because otherwise a rival, the detested Weiner, would take her instead. He might have got the money by one of several ways, but he began with the most obvious and the most...