ENTERTAINMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 94, 22 April 1933, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

REGENT THEATRE. . Now In its second week at the Hegent Theatre, "The Sign of. the . Cross" Is continuing to attract largo audiences. This picture, .which is a raratnouut: production, must go down as ono-of the finest.1 sound films yet presented to the public. "The; Sign of tho Cross" Is first and foremost a spectacle of pagan Rome, reaching Us fullest expression In a Jioman holiday at tho Circus Maximus, where the gladiatorial contest's and all the brutal games that delighted Nero servo as a prelude to the sacrifices of the Christians to the lions. BUt it- Is also a dramatic story of Christian persecution, and a beautiful love story of a Christian girl and a Roman patrician. Frederic March scores as the Roman patrician, Marcus Superbus, who loves the Christian girl; Elissa Landl is lovely as ' the Christian; Claudette Colbert surpasses her past performances as the wicked empress Poppaea; and Charles Laughton gives a tare performance as Nero. The peak of the picture is reached when the little band of Christians, concealed In a dungeon, file up the stone steps from their prison cell to the arena above, where the wild beasts are waiting to devour them before the multitude. " Slowly they wind up the steps singing their hymns in clear steady voices, their faces uplifted1 and their eyes alight with, tho spirit of the ideal for which they are about to die.. .';