NEW OPERA HOUSE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 25, 24 October 1936, Page 13

NEW OPERA HOUSE

“Mystery of the Mary Celeste”

The mystery of the Mary Celeste I It is the strangest of all the strange stories of the sea, and still a mystery. The ship of death set sail from New York in 1872 with a full cargo of alcohol. She was found derelict 300 miles from Gibraltar, her cargo intact, but not a soul ou board save a black cat. The film now showing at the New Opera House is the dramatic unfolding of a theory that has all the elements of probability. Ten of the Mary Celeste’s crew are shanghaied at the moment of sailing, and last of all a man is borrowed by Captain Benjamin Briggs from Morehead, his former friend, and rival for the heart of Sarah, whom Briggs has made his wife and now takes on board for a honeymoon trip. The hand of death is soon on the ship. One by one the crew disappear. The rest are in panic. Then the captain and his young wife vanish, and three men are left on board; then two, then one. Not till near the end is it known who is the ship’s evil genius, and then come the most tense moments of the whole powerful drama. Every part is a difficult one to play, yet every player is convincing, and the tension runs high throughout. Bela Lugosi plays a strong part as Captain Briggs, setting out light-heartedly on his ill-fated honeymoon, slowly weighed down by the evil mystery that lives on board, vanishing at last with his lovely bride into oblivion. Greta Nissen, the Norwegian star, heads the cast in “Honours Easy,” also on the programme. A wealthy picture dealer accuses his young partner of theft out of hatred for the latter’s father. The partner cannot establish a perfect alibi without compromising the accused’s wife, and it takes an accidental remark to set things happily right.