TOGETHER AGAIN

Evening Star, Issue 21916, 31 December 1934, Page 9

TOGETHER AGAIN

IRENE DUNNE AND JOHN BOLES.. FOR GRAND When Irene Dunne and John Boles appeared in ' Back Street ’ some time ago they caught the public’s attention, and it is therefore pleasing to note that they are together again in ' The Age of Innocence,’ which comes to the Grand Theatre on Wednesday. In ‘ The Age of Innocence ’ the producers felt that they had the ideal vehicle in which to teain the stars again. Schedule problems were ironed out, and the pijfttuie, ranking as on© of the most important on Hollywood’s new production programme, was placed before the cameras. Adapted by Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman. who wrote the screen play for ‘ Little Women,’, the new picture has New York high life of the la,te ’seventies and early ’eighties as its background) Miss Dunne and_ Boles are seen as the principals in a poignant romance which clashes with the strict socfal code of that era. This social code provides the chief u menace of the plot, and the struggle of the romantic pair with its obligations is dramatised to a poignant degree. Miss Dunne as an heiress who yearns for a real romance, which is frowned upon by her set, and John Boles as a scion of Manhattan s early “ 400,” who is bound by his pledged word even, when it means losing the woman he loves, are said to have roles even more powerful and sympathetic than those with which they stirred the public heart so deeply ni ‘ Back Street.’ . There is a triangle situation, in which Julie Haydon plays the third member. Miss Haydon’s role is that of a typical sweet and gentle product of “ the age of innocence,’ to whom the man is engaged at the time when he falls in love with the other woman. Under modern conditions it may seem that the problem of the two central characters would not engage much attention, but in that day to carry out tho dictates of their hearts meant rocking the very foundations of conventional behaviour.

The cast which supports the stare includes five distinguished players from the New York Theatre Guild. They are Lionel Atwill, Helen Westley (a founder member and present managing director of the organisation), Laura Hope Crews, Herbert Yost, and Edith- Van Cleve. The picture’s action was played on more than a score of elaborate and colourful settings, many of which exactly duplicated buildings of historical anti sentimental interest. Among the latter were the interior of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as it was when it was opened in 1880, and the interior of old Grace Church.