ST. JAMES THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 14

ST. JAMES THEATRE

* “Trailing The Killer” Novelty is the keynote of the entertainment which began at the Bt. James Theatre last night, and the best part of it is the personal appearance on the stage of the highly intelligent dog star Caesar, who subsequently appears in the Universal production, "Trailing the Killer.” Assisted by his owner-trainer, Mr. Bert 11. Tonks, Caesar demonstrated the difference between the “silent command” and “spoken Order” systems of training dogs for film work. The silent command has been made necessary by the advent of talkies, and Caesar is said to be the only dog to have mastered it perfectly. He went through his paces with confidence and considerable precision—barking when and where ordered, “playing dead” in the midst of noises almost loud enough to waken the dead, limping about the stage, imitating a kangaroo, and so on. He won much deserved applause, and seemed duly appreciative. Having seen Caesar in person, there was a special interest in seeing him in the feature picture. It is, indeed the main interest, though there are several other animals in the cast who seem to fall not far short of the star in intelligence. The villain of the piece is a mountain lion, a very dangerous beast apparently for all his comparatively small size, since he kills one man, threatens another, massacres many sheep, and fights vigorously with Caesar. The story, essentially primitive in keeping with its settings of nature in the raw, shows how .Caesar comes to be unjustly accused of many murderous crimes and how he finally clears his name by dispatching the real killer. The same idea has been used in short subjects, but this is the first time it has been expanded to feature length. The members of the small human cast are quite unknown (and perhaps likely to remain so), and by comparison Caesar and his four-footed colleagues seem much the more natural and intelligent performers. But after all, Caesar is the attraction, and he is worth seeing, particularly in the flesh.