ENTERTAINMENTS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 270, 31 October 1916, Page 2

ENTERTAINMENTS.

STORY OF A GREAT WAR TOLD IN A MAMMOTH FILM. WONDERFUL BIOGRAPH FEAT.

King’s Treatre, Hastings.—Of all the wars the world has known the greatest is now in progress. Until August of 1914 the greatest war in history was the terrific struggle between Home and Carthage. They fought for the dominion of the world —the world of the third century before Christ, just as Germany now fights for the dominion of the world of the 20th Century after Christ. As thou fe h they had gained some premonition of the terrible events which were to shake the world the following year, one of the greatest picture-making concerns, the “Itala Film Company,” undertook in 1913 the construction of a mammoth film depicting the extraordinary events of the Carthagenian wars. It was necessary of course that a thrilling story should be woven into the history of those stirring times, and to Gabriele D’Annunzio, the most famous of modern Italian playwrights, was entrusted the task. He revelled in it, and evolved a scenario which at first seemed impossible of; production. It seemed too enormous, too vast. Armies had to be marched through the snow aud ice of Alpine passes, cities had to be beleaguered and sacked, fleets had to meet in the crash of battle and to be destroyed by flames. Volcanoes had to belch forth, soldiers, sailors, priests, princes, rulers, elephants and horses, temples and palaces, had to be introduced in bewildering numbers. But the great work was undertaken and was successfully carried out. When it was completed and the cost added up it was found to reach over £50,000, but the most wonderful picture play yet known had been created. Very many months were occupied in the making of the picture, which has beeu called “Cabiria,” after the heroine of the story D’Annunzio contrived. D’Annunzio himself superintended the whole of the work. An immense company of actors was enrolled. Every one of them had to be specially selected, for every one had to look the part he was to play. Then they had to be trained and taught. One scene laid in the temple of Moloch —the hideoiis god of Carthage into whose fiery vitals infant children were hurled alive as sacrifices —could not be photographed for eight months. The actors were all rehearsed, but they had to be longhaired. Wigs were tried, but they gave an unreal effect, and tho final presentation of the scene was postponed till the actors’ hair grew to the proper length. Wonder is piled upon wonder in this remarkable film. Some of tho scenes could not possibly be really enacted. A Roman hero, Fulvius Axilla, leaps 65 feet down a , \hil dren are hurjed into the fire of Moloch. Mt. Etna breaks out into fearful eruption. /However eager a producer may be for reality he cannot compass these things. The art of the biograph man had be 'called in. Super-imposition and 'all the other clever methods by which the film producer gains his effects had to be 'employed. In this respect Cabiria is an ' eternal puzzle. It was completed at .Turin, in Italy, in April of last year, • and was produced with wonderful success first in Rome, and afterwards in ■ New York and Paris. It was purchased for New Zealand last year—the most expensive film deal ever made for tins country —and it is to be screened at the Kind’s Theatre, Hastings, to-night and I to-morrow night. Overture 7.4 a, picture starts 7.50.