PARAMOUNT THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 102, 4 May 1929, Page 7

PARAMOUNT THEATRE.

The fifth programme of talking, singing, and soLud pictures was presented at the I'aramount Theatre last night before a big audience. All the stars speak; and the stars include such popular favourites as Madge Bellamy, Louise as the mother in "Mother Knows Best," proves herself a finished and most capable actress: Barry Norton makes an admirable hero a:ul lover; and of Madge Bellamy it. is enough to say that she is at her best. The Roxy Theatre Orchestra is heard to great advantage iv the synchronised music score, a brilliant rendition of popular music numbers with the delightful theme song, "Sally of My Dreams." running like a golden vein throughout. "Mother Knows Best" tells the story of the rise—not meteoric, but hard-won—of a chiJd dancer, singer, and mimic to a famous star, with the world at her feet and a great New York Theatre owned by her and bearing her own name "Sally Quail." The outbreak of the Great W Tar finds Sally touring in Europe, and she and her mother stay on the Continent, and on the Western Front do their bit to bring something of cheer and comfort to the soldiers Home of the best scenes in the play show Sally dancing and singing and giving gay imperheart Is well nigh breaking, for her hero, the composer of her song, "Sally of My Dreams," has volunteered for the war and is posted, first as "missing" and then as "dead." It is then that the true Soman, longing for a home of her own, comes out in Sally, hitherto a mere puppet in her mother's hands. A broken heart brings Sally almost to death's door and it is not till tIICR that Sally's mother, who had been thoroughly embittered by her own loveless marriage, learns the great lesson that a life without love is no life at all. Happily, Sally's hero, though sadly crippled, returns at last from a German hospital-prison, and "all is well that ends well." The supports include the hilarious talking eomcdv, "Happy Birthday." in which no less than six accomplished principals make fun and frolic, fast and furious, though not without, at times, an undertone of tragedy: and a Fox Movietone News.