RUTH CHATTERTON IN NEW DRAMA

Evening Star, Issue 21116, 31 May 1932, Page 12

RUTH CHATTERTON IN NEW DRAMA

• ONCE A LADY * COMING TO EMPIRE One of those events looked forward to by movie patrons—the coming of a new Ruth Chatterton picture—will take place on Friday next at the Empire Theatre. The newest Paramount production for the “ first lady ” of films is titled ‘ Once a Lady,’ and 'is a melange of the dramatic material which this emotional actress so effectively handled in ‘Madame X,’ ‘Sarah and Son,’ and ‘ The Better wife.’ Although Miss Chatterton has been surrounded with a notable and gifted cast, including a goodly sprinkling of English celebrities who ideally suit tha British environment of the early action; it is again the fine sense of dramatic values which the star possesses which carries off the honours. The story is of a Russian adventuress transplanted from Paris by the wooing of an English son of wealth. The changed environment, with the husband’s disapproving family alienating the affection of a daughter from her mother, and a moment of indiscretion with a former admirer on the eve of an important election in which the young man is interested, provokes a break up. Reported killed in a tram, wreck, the outcast wife remains “ dead,” becoming a famous butterfly -in Paris, but jealously watching the career of her daughter from a distance. The manner in which the husband’s faulty divorce • decree, fear of scandal, and the woman’s anonymous devotion to her grown daughter are dramatically woven into a happy ending for the second generation make an impressive climax. One of the important roles in foil for Ruther Chatterton is played by Herbert Bunston, veteran character actor,’ whose name has been listed on casts of worth-while productions in both New York and London. Bunston has the part of the aristocratic father-m law of an unconventional Russian girl adrift in Paris. He appears in the early sequences of this new dramatic screen creation from Eoe Akins’s play, ‘ The Second Life.’ Since entering pic. tures Bunston has appeared in ‘ Dracula,’ doing the same part as he did m the New York stage version; as well as in ‘ Old English ’ with George Arliss, and in ‘ The" Last of Mrs Cheney ’ and ‘ Lady of Scandal.’