Powerful Character Studies In Drama

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 66, 20 March 1935, Page 5

Powerful Character Studies In Drama

NEW STANDARD SET FOE SCENIC EEALISM

(State.-Screening To-day.)

Occasionally the screen gives us the "something different"—the outstanding picture that leaves a deep impression on the mind and the desire to see it again. Such a picture is the tense drama and magnificent spectacle, “The Battle," a Gaumont-British picture that Fox Film releases. The production has been given a strong cast of well-known players, all or whom shine in their finest, screen performances to date.

John Loder is excellently cast as a British naval attache with tho Japanese Fleet; delightful Merle Oberon, the clever Tasmanian girl who made such a hit in "The Private Lifo of Henry VIII,” gives a perfect characterisation of the dear little Marquise Vorisaka, puzzled and unhappy; Miles Mander, proves his versatility in tho role of an artist; Betty Stoekfiekl, is charming as the wealthy owner of a pleasure yacht; and then we have that great artist, Charles Boyer, who gives one of the screen’s strongest and most sympathetic portrayals, as the Marquis Vorisaka, a captain in tho Japanese Navy, who tramples on his honour as a husband and officer in his desire to discover the secret of British naval success.

Nicolas Farkas, tho director, formerly a distinguished camera-man, has revealed himself in one stroke as a very fine exponent of the art of direction in a story forceful in its very simplicity and moving in its manly emotional sequences. Scenes of naval eeounter appear which have ever been equalled for power and accuracy on tho screen. Moreover, Mr Farkas obtains with tolling effect the drama of conflicting wills and temperaments in eloquent silences which are poignant in their itensity.