TOPICAL FILM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 306, 26 December 1940, Page 11

TOPICAL FILM.

"MYSTERY SEA RAIDER."

Ways and meant* by which the operation of a eea raider under present international circumstances might be conducted, give Mystery Sea Raider," which is to commence screening at the Majestic Theatre to-morrow, unusual film timeliness of interest. The picture masks no national identities, the German spy being known as such to the audience throughout, but the film differs from others of its ilk in that there is no denouncing of Hitler or Naziiem or Germany, and no atrocities are depicted. In other words, it is not propaganda. The melodrama opens with the torpedoing of a passenger liner hours after Britain's declaration of war, identifying a German submarine am responsible for that disaster, then moves to New York where a German agent, instrumental in arranging the first shipwreck, finances an American freighter, which, once at sea, is manned with a German crew picked up from a submarine. From then on the ship operates as a sea raider, plying the Caribbean, sinking French and British ships, and establishing oil-eupply stations for U-boats. The time of the narrative is now and, with recent sinkings around New Zealand, the film should prove a very strong attraction.

Carol Landis, Henry Wiicoxon and Onslow Stevens take leading roles, the first-mentioned being the girl in the case, Henry Wiicoxon the hero and owner of the ship used as a raider, and Onslow Stevens as the German agent who directs its operations. Kathleen Howard, Wallace Rairden and Sven Hugo Borsr head a strong supporting cast. These characters are affected by the war—terribly affected in some cases—but the interestinst point ■of the whole film is its fairness. No sides are taken in the conflict.