THE PICTURE HOUSES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 46, 6 February 1928, Page 7

THE PICTURE HOUSES

COSY DE LUXE There arc spills . . . there are chills . . . and there are laughs and enough side-splitting comedy to last you till the cows come home in Denny’s latest picture “Fast and Furious.” This picture is be.Vond question the best thing that Reginald Denny has turned out since he threw the gloves hi “The Leather Pushers.” You’ll never know what troubles are until you see sonic of the scrapes that Kenny gets into in “Fast and Furious.” Denny is surrounded by supporting players who provide excellent foils for his comedy antics. Barbara Worth makes a (harming leading lady, and Claude Gillingwater. Armand Kaliz, Lee Moran, Chas K. French. Wilson Benge and others are splendid in the supporting roles- ‘East and Furious’’ is the screen version ol an original story bv Denny himself, adapted to Lhe films by Raymond Cannon and directed by Mel Brown. The sensuous south-west, with its Basque sheep ranches and its internal feuds of long standing, is used as a back ground lor “Whispering Sage,” thrilling Eox Filins Western, also at the Cosy, in which Buck Jones is starred. Natalie Joyce heads an excellent supporting cast. , “BEN HUR” AT THE MUNICIPAL. Fifteen miles out in the Mediterranean from Leghorn, Italy, a fleet of one hundred galleys of the time of Caesar Augustus enacted the greatest naval battle ever staged for a motion picture These galleys, which took six months to make, were exact replicas of those used by the ancient Romans ,and were reconstructed to appear in one of the most spectacular episodes of Fied Niblo’s epic production of “Ben-Hur” for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The filming of the scenes necessitated the employment of thousands of people to appear in the sea fight, including a large number of negroes brought to Italy from the north oi Africa to act the roles of galley slaves Ramon Noviuro, who plays the title role of “Ben-Hur,” and Frank Currier, who appears as the Roman Commander, “Arrius,” have promi neu parts in this sequence. It is in this part of the story that Ben-Hur, imprisoned by the Romans as a galley slave, saves the life of Arrius in the great battle with pirates, and is adopted by the commander. A collapsible ship, such as was used bv naval commanders in the first centuliy, was built for this episode. The galley is an exact copy of an ancient one, put together with wooden clasps, so that if the commander wished to rapidly convey his ship from other waters without wasting the time necessary to sad round a distant point, he simply gave the order to undo the hooks and take the ship apart, and had the pieces transported across terra firma and later put together again. “As a prologue to “Ben Hur,” Mr. Bewley will sing “Star of Bethlehem.”