"DEAN MAITLAND" FILM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 139, 14 June 1934, Page 9

"DEAN MAITLAND" FILM.

POWERFUL EMOTIONAL DRAMA. Familiar-as a story, a play and a silent film, the intensely emotional human drama of "The Silence of Dean Maitlsmd, by Maxwell Gray, comes once more to Auckland to-morrow, when a talking picture version will open a season at the .Regent Theatre. Set in an English village m Victorian days, the theme has been modernised with considerable skill and placed in a setting on the rugged Australian coast. Directed by the promising young Sydney producer, Ken G. Hall, this him was given the brilliant photographic work of Oiptain Frank Hurley, who made such excellent negatives of "1 he Squatter s Daughter," "Siege of the South and "Jewel of the Pacific." . An Australian reviewer wrote ot this picture recently, on the occasion of its world release in Sydney:—" 'The Silence o£ Dean Maitland' is drama, melodrama if you like it; it receives immense benefit from an inspired use of the camera by Frank Hurley, but it does not depend on that camera. It depends on direction, finish in deta.il, and on the acting of such players as John Longden, whose Dean is a convincing as well as a vastly interesting performance. With 'The Silence o Dean Maitland' Australia comes confidently into the field of international film-making. Direction, photography, sound and acting are all able to challenge comparison. John Longden is especially lauded tor his work as the Dean, while Charlotte Francis is similarly praised for her performance of the role of Alma Lee, to iwhose wiles the Dean succumes.