PICTURE THEATRES

Evening Star, Issue 19777, 30 January 1928, Page 3

PICTURE THEATRES

EMPIRE Something new in the film version of a stage mysery play is offered in the presentation of ‘The Cat and the.Canary,’ now being screened at the Empire Theatre. At the head of an allstar cast it features Laura La Plante, the petite blonde star who _ achieved noteworthy' success in ‘ Her Big Night,’ ‘Butterflies in the Rain,’ ‘Poker Faces,’ ‘ The Love Thrill,’ and other Universal productions. It is not generally appreciated that a vast amount of technical experimentation preceded the development of the unusual camera angles employed to play up the shadowgraphic effects, in this picture, which called for the improvisation of a large assortment of mechanical aids to produce some of the remarkable sequences in the production. To heighten the effect of the eerie scenes which the director has worked out, he has not neglected comedy-relief, utilising three comedians who can be depended upon to carry out his comedy ideas to the full. They are Gertrude Astor, Flora Finchc, who is making her debut on the coast after years of sidesplitting comedy’' in the Last, and Creighton Hale. Others in the cast are Forrest Stanley, Arthur Edmund Carew, Martha Mattox, Gorge Seigmann, Lucien Littlefield, Joe Murphy, and Billie Engle. Special music is played by the Empire Orchestra, under Mr C. Parnell. ‘ Sunshine and Showers ’ (Flatb) and J he Sneak’ (Brown) are included in the numbers. OCTAGON ‘ Wolf’s Clothing,’ the Warner Bros/ picture, starring Moiito Blue, which is the current attraction at the Octagon Theatre, is one of the most diverting pictures of the season. Founded upon Arthur Somers Roche’s story, it tells a tale that recalls the spirit or O. Henry. For here New York is once more transformed intp Bagdad-on-the-Subway, and once 'more adventure comes to commonplace people acd turns them into types of true romance. Ink© a character in the ‘ Arabian Nights, Barry Baline, a subway guard, is transported into scenes of great pomp and circumstance, and whirled through a night of mad excitement. The night is New Year’s Eve, and the place is New York. A gang of crooks are out to get oOBOOdoI in loot, and Barry Baline finds himself out to get the crooks. Monte Blue is Barry, and Barry is a role that suits Air Blue in every particular. A big, husky, laughing loughneck, he plays with a zest that sweeps the adventure along into the realm oi convincing probability. °T ) ' posite him is Patsy Ruth Miller as; a society girl who wants to see life without a chaperon. She is out to capture her freedom. She captures, instead, the affections of the subway guard. Other outstanding performances are given by John Miljan, Douglas Gerrard, Leo Moran, and Kale Pasha. The Octagon Orchestra, under Air It'D. Austin, plays a selection from ‘Carmen’ (Bizet), with a grand organ accompaniment by Air C. A. Martin. QUEEN'S The daring film version of ‘ Damaged Goods,’ now being screened at the Queen’s Theatre, has aroused a great deal of interest wherever it has been shown. Eugene Brieux’s novel was banned in New Zealand some years back by the authorities, but it is quite safe to assume that, with the experience that the war has brought, the novel would now be gladly received, not only by the medical faculty, but by those broadvisioned workers who have come out in the open and insisted upon the scourge

being attacked and stemmed. Parents are especially asked to see the film, so that they may be armed with a weapon, so to speak, to protect their children by inculcating in them when qpportunity offers the means by which they can avoid dreaded evils that so often' lie in the path of life of the young. By order of the New Zealand film censor mixed audiences are prohibited, and it has therefore been decided that women only will be admitted to the dress circle and men only to the stalls. The censor has made another proviso—viz., that no individual under the age of sixteen years is to be admitted. EVERYBODY'S AND KING EDWARD ].n the fever-haunted swamps of the Brazilian penal colony along the Amazon, quinine is the greatest boon. Nothing can take its place, and no dope victim ever craved a drug more than does the man whose pulses are beating in the mad tumult of swamp sickness. This fact is brought out forcibly in ‘ Framed,’ Alilton Sills’s newest First National starring picture now being presented at Everybody’s and King Edward Theatres. Sills is sent to the penal colony for a crime of which he is innocent. There he meets the man responsible for his downfall, and the latter is dying of fever. Sills has the only available quinine, and gives it to him. But he dies in spite of the drug, which has come too late to save him. Contrite, be confesses all, and Sills is freed. Charles Gerrard plays the part of the villain with consummate skill, and Natile Kingston is the leading w man of the story. ‘Foreign Devils’ is on the same bill, and features Tim APCoy, one o/ the most versatile of outdoor stars, in a stirring romance of the Chinese Boxer rebellion. PLAZA AND GRAND Torn Mix himself took charge of one of the difficult tasks encountered in the production of ‘ The Outlaws of Red River,’ his latest Fox Films drama in which he has the role of a Texas ranger, and which is being shown at the Plaza and Grand Theatres. It was necessary for the rangers to drag a coach to the top of a. hill and let it crash into the onflows’ stockade. Alix solved the problem, and took the vehicle up tlie steep incline with Tony leading the horsemen in the difficult task. The camera caught all this, and in addition a lot of the most beautiful Califorian scenery as a background. Dick Talmadge is the star in ‘The Isle of Hope,’ which takes for its theme the very familiar ‘ Treasure Island ’ motive; but the story of piratical plunder buried in the South Seas has been so dressed up by James Bell Smith that it seems entirely fresh; and no story offers more possibilities and is more usually delightful entertainment than this'.