“THE GREAT BARRIER”

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 189, 7 May 1937, Page 8

“THE GREAT BARRIER”

Film of the Construction of the C.P.R. To many people a film envisaging some great engineering feat, involving man’s dare to nature, bringing into being something vitally serviceable to the world, gives more pleasure than the ordinary theatrical picture. That point of view is expressed in the picture "The Great Barrier,” a preview of which was given at the State Theatre, Wellington, yesterday morning to a limited audience. "The Great Barrier” is really the romance of the C.P.R. railway, a mighty achievement which linked the two greatest oceans together ou British territory. That is the main point made—that this gigantic engineering achievement sbou g have cleft a pathway of steel from Vancouver Sound to the Atlantic on British ground. The story which has been woven into the texture of the picture is a moving one. It is all action from the beginning at Moodyville, where the track is being thrown down under pressure, the principal urge being the flail-like tongue and horny fist of Moody (Roy Emertou), the husky foreman of works, who is a man of Herculean build and with courage to back up his poundage. Hickey (Richard Arlen), a card-sharper, and Steve (Barry Mackay), his English pnotegee. arrive rt Moodyville when tlie works are in full swing. Hickey fancies that he can clean up at the local saloon, but he makes two starts on which he never reckoned. One is a romance with pretty Mary Moody (Antoinette Bellier), the daughter of the foreman, and the other is a' first-class fight in the saloon, for which he is sentenced to 30 days on the railway works. That is the making of Hickey. He gets to like the work, and to glory in his strength. Trouble comes to the company when they strike the first area of muskeg (swamp). An attempt is made to run tracks over the morass, with disastrous results. One train dives into the swamp and another looks like following, when it is dramatically saved by heroic horsemen led by the intrepid Hickey. At the board meeting James W. Hill warns the directors that the route must be changed to one further south, and threatens to resign if his advice is not taken. His resignation is accepted there and then, and the work forges westward, only to encounter greater obstacles. Money grows short as the troubles increase and the men become discontented. The company is beaten unless it can discover a practicable pass through the Rocky Mountains, and it is an old surveyor, Major Rogers (J. Farrell Macdonald) who undertakes the do-or-die survey. Only two of his party survive, Rogers and Hickey, but they do discover a pass when on the point of exhaustion and death, and it is their smoke signal from the nearest mountain peak that saves the life of Moody and his daughter from the strikers, who are rioting dangerously. Thence the work goes forward to a glorious issue, and Hickey finds solace in the arms of the prettiest of Marys, The virility, tempo, and strength of this picture hold the attention throughout, and convey in graphic manner the many dangers that were encountered and overcome in the building of this section of the “AH Red” route to England.