ENTERTAINMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 305, 11 December 1929, Page 10

ENTERTAINMENTS

“JOURNEY’S END” TO-MORROW NIGHT IN HASTINGS To-morrow night at the Municipal Theatre, Hastings, the J. C. Williamson Ltd. management will present for the first time to playgoers of this town the world-renowned- dramatic triumph “Journey’s End,” which has achieved an an outstanding international success. It has swept away all barriers of race and country In London it is playing to packed audiences at every performance. Several companies are playing it throughout the provinces. Its success in Paris is tremendous. In Berlin it. is being presented at matinees by English artists and in the evenings by German artists. In Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain and Portugal and other countries it is the biggest stage success for many years. In New York, played by a British company, it is the greatest dramatic triumph in years. No less than nine companies are touring it through the provinces of the United States. The Sydney “Bulletin” writes: “Journey’s End” is so good that there is nothing seen on the Australian boards for a long time with which one could compare it. As Stanhope Reginald Tate dominates the piece with a quiet realism, punctuated by emotional outbursts that are deep ly impressive. As Raleigh, Lewis Shaw (with the ingenue manner which seems native to him) captures the affections as he did in “Young Woodley. ” As tile stout, amiable sensualist Trotter, Vincent Lawson is excellent, and Osborne, the sequestered schoolmaster stuffed by Fate, the inexorable tailor, into an officer’s uniform, is admirably and sedately dune by Harvey Adams. The culinary humours necessary to keep an audience in laughs and complete the picture are provided by John Fernside, whose farce is the farce of a real character rather than of a stage jester. Ambrose Fowler, Alan Lawrence, Reginald Wykeham, Reginald Dane, Hedge Carey, George Jennings and Arthur Stigant, all assist to make “Journey’s End, one of the best, acted plays ever staged in Australia. Only one performance can be staged here. The box plan is rapidly filling at Fail's.

THE PICTURE HOUSES

COSY DE LUXE A picture that will hold you in thrilling suspense until the last moment, “The Drake Case,'’’ Universal alltalking sensation, now showing at the Cosy Theatre, establishes itself as vastly different from the'run of murder trial courtroom films be-au«o of its unique story and its extraordinary treatment. “The Drake Case’’ is really the trial of The People v. Lulu Marks, an intriguing character, accused of the cold-blooded murder cf a wealthy woman, Mrs George Morgan Drake. While the entire story is practically enacted through the testimony of witnesses the picture has been handled so that it stands alone among films of its kind. In "The Drake Case” the audience in the theatre becomes the audience in the courtroom listening to a trial that is marked with drama, tears, laughter, thrills and suspense. It- has everything that features the trial of a celebrated minder ease and a little bit more, provided by the unusual camera angles used by Director Edward Laemmle. “The Drake Caso” Las an ail-star cast Including Gladys Brorkwell, Forrest Stanley, Robert Frazor, Tames Crane, Doris Lloyd, Bill Thorne, Eddie Hearn, Tommy Dugan, Byron Dougins, Francis Ford, Henry Barrows, Amber Norman and Barbara Leonard. There will be a matinee to-morrow.

MUNICIPAL. Tim McCoy, hero of many Western dramas which vividly depict the historical surroundings of the. old West, is always at his best when seen tn this type of picture. There is no great wonder at this, for there is no person living who is better able to portray this class of role with the realism of such intimate knowledge of the country and the times. In ‘The Desert Rider,” the Metro-Goldwyn-Maycr picturisation of the old West, at the Municipal Theatre. McCoy is seen in bis true element. The picture is n thrilling and dramatic tale of adventure the settlement of lower California, and has as its locale the heart of the vast Mojave desert. The theme of the story revolves about the daring robbery of a pony express rider, who is bound and left in the heart of the desert without, food or water. His miraculous escape and eventual recovery is one of the most tense and interesting* spectacles ever given a local audience.