'DON JUAN'

Evening Star, Issue 19642, 23 August 1927, Page 3

'DON JUAN'

Patrons of tlie Octagon Theatre are pconiisetl an exceptional treat on Friday night, when John Barrymore’s latest production, entitled ‘Don Juan,’ will open its Dunedin .season. The story is founded on a three hundred year old legend, which _ has inspired poets, dramatists, musicians, and artists. .From tin's wealth of story material, Bess Moreylyth has built a tale that brims with the splendor of the Rome of the Borgias, and is alive with Hashing action. .Barrymore plays a dual role. First lie appears as Don Juan’s father, Don Jose, a courtly, punctilious, subtle Spanish aristocrat, who, discovering his wild is nidaitliI'nl, dies with this warning to Ids boy, Juan: “Destroy women or they will destroy yon.” Next Barrymore appears as Don Juan, grown to manhood amid the magnificence of the Home of the Borgias. The role, as developed in tlie picture, bears points of resemblance to that memorable character of the Renaissance lover winch Barrymore played on the stage in Sent Bellini’s ‘The Jest’; a silken, sensuous, seductive lover, who. with a smile on his Jips, poisons the minds of the women who yield to his irresistible fascinations. Thus he becomes the destroyer. Barrymore’s magnetic personality lias never, according to all reports, been more effectively projected than in this % picture. Excellent as were Ids performances in ‘ Beau Brnmmcl ’ and ‘ The Sea Beast,’ these achievements are said to fall into insignificance beside that of Ids ‘Don Juan,’ the godlike pagan who made of Ids life the most glamorous romance. The romance has been screened against backgrounds of splendor that ravish tho eye. Here is the pomp and pageantry of the Eternal City in its most gloriously beautiful period, and through it all is the tingling excitement of love as realised by the greatest lover of all ages. Alan Crosland has directed ‘ Don Juan ’ in a way that lifts him to the topmost pitch of delineators of romance. In support of tho star he had a cast that includes such notables as Mary Aster, Myrna Loy, John Roche, June Marlowe,, Estelle Taylor, Helene Costello, Jane Minton, Lionel Brahm, Phyllis Haver, Helen Lee Worthing, Nigel dc Brulier. Hedda Hopper, Sheldon Lewis, Emily Fitzroy, Gibson Rowland, Josef Swickard, Montagu Love, Warner Gland, Gustav Von Scifertitz, and Philippe de Lacy.