STRANGE FRIENDSHIP.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 81, 4 March 1935, Page 2

STRANGE FRIENDSHIP.

TRAGEDIES OF FOREST,

DRAMATISED IN FILM

There is something unusual, something entirely new and something strangely emotional in the description of life in the wild animal kingdom depicted in a remarkable film-—“ Sequoia”. —which was shown at a private screening last evening before its first public release in a short season starting at the Regent Theatre "on AVcdnesday. This revelation of the tragedies of the forest, and of remarkable; friendships, more than fulfils its objective of creating a greater love for animals. The fascinating friendship between a puma and a deer—striking contrasts which it portrays, emphasises the senses of the animals and their reactions when, after being reared together as pets, they are released into the beautiful and amazing fastnesses of the Sierra mountains among‘the giant sequoias (or redwoods) which look impassively and grandly upon the animal life moving at their bases. In the powerful dramatisation of this world, man is the lesser being, and wild life the greater. It is this reversal, of the usually accepted order that makes tlie film so wonderful, so gripping, so- thrilling. Nothing more superb could be seen than the death-battle between demand deer for herd supremacy, the fight by the fieet-footed animal, timid of humans, to save a Chinese child from the fatal fangs of a snake, the encounter between puma and man to save the deer from being shot, and the final moving struggle when sharp antlers toss the villain over a precipice. It is an educational picture, in more phases than one, that every human being with a heart of compassion should see