“RIVER OF ROMANCE”

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7241, 12 June 1930, Page 5

“RIVER OF ROMANCE”

BUDDY ROGERS AT THE DE LUXE ON SATURDAY Paramount’s all-talking epic, “The River of Romance,” opens a threenight season at. tho Do Luxe on Saturday. The picture is full of incident and thrill. At the age of 21, Charles (Buddy) Rogers, son of a southern family, returns to his Mississippi home from Philadelphia, where he has been living since childhood. He falls in love with June Col Iyer, coquettish ward of his father, Henry B. Walthall. Mary Brian, June’s younger sister, falls-in love with Buddy. At the party given apropos of the engagement of Buddy and June, Walter McGrail, former lover of June, shows up with his brother. They have just been released from gaol for killing a man in a feud. McGrail leaves on another man hunt before the

announcement of the engagement, but returns the next day to claim June. Hearing of the events of the previous evening, he swaggers out to Buddy and challenges him to a duel. Buddy, unfamiliar with the southern code, laughs off the challenge. His father judges Buddy as a coward and so do all the others except Mary, who is not in sympathy with the southern code. Buddy is driven away because of his stigma of cowardice. Ho goes to Natchez and there meets Wallace Beery, the owner of a gambling saloon. Fred Kohler comes to tho hall. He is tho most feared bad man in the lower Mississippi. Buddy gets into, a scuffle with him, and wiili a lucky break knocks him out. Buddy then assumes the name of Colonel Blake, and Beery adds "Notorious” to the front of ir. And his reputation as a bad man and killer spreads far and wide. In the meantime June has married McGrail. It is a year from tire day of banishment that Alary is celebrating her comingout party. Beery and Buddy arrive the same night. Alary, remembering a nromisc that sho would have the first dance, a waltz, with Buddy, comes out of the house to sit alone, wondering it lie will ever return. Beery and Buddy are after Joe Pottcrson, who has gambled Walthall’s money away. He talks with Alary and dances in the garden. They are interrupted by others wishing for a dance, and then Buddy, as the "Notorious Colonel Blake,” asks for his father. He strikes terror into the hearts of McGrail and his brother. They arc giving in when Alary comes from the house and recognises Buddy. McGrail gains a little mere courage, but soon wilts under the determination of the transformed Buddy. His father is overjoyed, but Mary cannot understand his apparent acceptance of the southern code and his killings until Beery says he had better leave on the steamer, as no one is any longer needed to lie for Buddy. Alary anu Buddy arc left to their happiness.