THE PICTURE HOUSES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 213, 23 August 1927, Page 9

THE PICTURE HOUSES

c'osydeTluxe. Two fine pictures are being shown at the Cosy, each of very different genre, one an amusing farce comedy and the other a “problem” picture. “Blonde or Brunette” is the record of a gentleman who looked for an “old-fashioned girl,” found her, and then discovered that Paris had worked a change. Then he divorced the first and married a real Victorian who liked nothing better than to stay home and play the harp. Unfortunately mother didn’t like divorces and the gentleman’s preferences in colouring didn’t stay fixed even after two marriages, so the comedy is fast and furious. Adolph Menjou does some good work in this. Fox Films deserves high praise for the screen version of David Belasco’s great drama of several years ago. Alec B. Francis plays Peter Grimm in a manner which should be a credit to any luminary of either stage or screen. Beautiful Janet Gaynor, hailed by critics 1 as one of the most promising young dramatic actresses to appear m several years, has the leading feminine role in “The Return of Peter Grimm,” the version of the Belnsco stage success. The film is now at the Cosy Theatre. MUNICIPAL. It is difficult to express just how good “Zeebrugge 1 'is. There is no other picture with which it can be compared or likened to. Here is a film which all the time entertains, sometimes amuses, at others shows pathos, but above all contains more excitement to the foot than any other picture ever shown; and this picture is not the product of any great scenario writer, it did not require the genius of a D. W. Griffith to conceive the story, and to tell it in all its thrilling detail, it is simply the true record of a happening ot a few years ago. “Zeebruggs” has been acclaimed everywhere as a great film, and it grips its audiences as no ordinary drama has ever done. Many were the deeds of heroism performed in the fact of almost certain death, too numerous to detail, but the storming of the mole, the rescue of the crews of the sunken- block-ships, the shambles in the fighting-top of the Vindictive, and other glorious episodes are all recorded in this wonderful film. Not till January, 1921 (two years and three months after Zeebrugge), was the last of the block-ships moved sufficiently to enable the channel to be used with freedom. The great raid on Zeebrugge had most fully and gloriously succeeded, and the last that the enemy saw of the British ships on that St. George’s Day was the White Ensign on Vindictive fading softly into the darkness This film will be screened for the final time this evening at the Municipal Theatre and none should miss the opportunity ot seeing it. HAVELOCK PICTURES. “Ypres” should be seen by every man, woman and child, for in “Ypres” we have our first opportunity of getting a close-up of the war. In this picture thre are some things told on the screen that are untellable in words; for example, how a machine gun fires, how it works, how it pounds, and how the lad at the trigger holds on to it and is shaken by it as it fires. And raids—the figures in the night creeping and crawling, thrusting their tube of explosives under the enemy wire and blowning it up and then charging through. There nre only a few of the instances which one can pick out; to begin with, the producers of this historic picture were permitted to have the use of such official motion picture records as the War Office had, and the picture tells in dramaric and thrilling style the story of the Ypres salient. The remainder of the scenes were made at Aidershot, the War Office assisting by the load of some 1850 troops of various arms of the service with permission to enact the various scenes—and how they did it, bombs and shellfire all over the Aldershot plain, and we find ourselves glad that we are viewing the performance from a comfortable seat. To-night will see the screening of the picture at Havelock North.