'THE ROSARY'

Evening Star, Issue 21090, 30 April 1932, Page 9

'THE ROSARY'

ATTRACTIVE PROGRAMME AT REGENT Few bettor opportunities for emotional acting have been given in recent films than in ‘The Rosary,’ which, if accorded the patronage its merits warrant, should bring bumper houses to the Regent Theatre for the next week. Such a picture as * The Rosary ’ promises well for the future of the British film industry. Excellently photographed, artistically produced, and faithfully acted, the talkie version of the story_ charmed the large number who saw it last night. An appropriate atmosphere is created for the picture by Miss Rita Holmes’s singing of ‘ The Rosary ’ as part of a well-arranged stage prologue. Though the main theme of this striking picture is the portrayal of a woman’s sacrifice for the happiness of her younger sister, the story touches many lives and follows the play of many human emotions. As the elder sister, Margot Grahame has a role that calls for much dramatic acting, and shows great art in making the most of the part while still restraining it within the bounds of normal human behaviour. And if the virtue of the leading character is a little beyond the experience of ordinary people, they will find some sympathy for the varied types that are portrayed by Elizabeth Allen as the unscrupulous, selfish younger sister, Walter Piers as the impecunious father and self-confessed forger, Leslie Perrins as the employer who spends a week-end with his typiste but falls really in love with virtue, or Charles Groves as Hornett, butler in the Manncring household, and his master’s accomplice in forgery. The nobility of the theme and the haunting melody of ‘The Rosary’ song, faintly heard at intervals, seem to lift the whole story to a higher level than forgers, stenographers, and murderesses usually attain, and to lift the audience with them. The strange train of events which leads to the tragic shooting of a blackmailer by the younger girl and her half-sister’s subsequent self-sacrifice on her behalf, is deftly presented. Although the solace of the convent, which first the one and then .the other girl seeks, is persuasively advanced, it Is not allowed to obscure the main trend of the plot. Indeed, for the most part, the film deals with the modern, workaday world.

The supporting pictures are excellent and varied, including a sound review, an Australian gazette, an amusing animated cartoon, a Grantland Rice Sportlight, and another of the popular Vagabond Director series. The box plans are at the theatre and The Bristol,