OPERA HOUSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 10563, 17 April 1928, Page 6

OPERA HOUSE.

“THE BELOVED ROGUE” Many old customs have changed since the fifteenth century hut securing a prison pardon from royalty still remains much the same in some countries. Francois Villon was released from his cell by a pardon from the king in 1461. In the role of that ’‘sad, glad, bad, mad poet”, in his newest film, “The Beloved Rogue” now screening at the Opera House, John Barrymore enacts the famous incident in the Meung Prison on October 1, 1461, when young King Louis XI. made a state entry. To celebrate that event, the gaol's wery thrown open and among other prisoners released was the heart and jail-breaker, Francois Villon. Had that not happened, the world’ might have been the poorer for wanf of Villon’s great poem “Le Grand Testament” written upon liis release irom the dungeon. There as recorded iib that poem, his eyes had been bandaged by thick walls and he “had been beaten like dirty linen on a washboard.” A diet of bread-crusts had made hjs teeth like those of a rake and it included nothing else but water. The water particularly rankled. Villon had learned to hate it ever since the day lie was arrested for stealing from a priest and questioned by the police under one of the cruellest tortures in a day of unrestrained cruelties. The torment consisted in making the ppet swallow large quantities of cold water. In his dungeon he composed numberless ballads, one famous one depicting the poet and his accomplices as they will appear after death. Barrymore’s Villon is the fascinating poet,' the wit, the philosopher, and the rogue.