A City In Flames

Northern Advocate, 18 July 1938, Page 11

A City In Flames

Filmed on a tremendous scale, the sight of a whole city in flames made an awe-inspiring climax to “In Old Chicago,” Dio 20th Century super-at-traction which opened before the Whangarei public at the Regent Theatre on Saturday night. Commencing life in the middle ’Bo’s, the groat American city grow at mush-room-speed until 1867, a town of easy mc-ney and easy ways. Notorious throughout the States was the “Patch,” the city’s jerry-built slum area of crazily-built houses and garish saloons, the source of political strength !o those sufficiently unscrupulous to employ crooked voting, and a veritable cesspool of vice, as well as a firetrap endangering the whole area. How Molly O’Leary comes to the town in its infancy, and her three sons grow up with a growing city, the elder ultimately to become Mayor with a self-imposed task of “cleaning up” the “Patch,” and the great conflagration in which his goal is realised, even though he meets his own death, is graphically told in this film. Stark drama enters when Mayor Jack O'Leary finds himself forced to pit his strength against that of his younger brother Dion, political boss of Die town, and his tempestuous but loyal sweetheart, Belle Fawcett, night-club queen. The climax, set in the flaring background of the blazing city, is one of the most thrilling and unusual yet to come to Whangarci.

The programme, which will be shown again tonight and tomorrow, also features thrilling moments from the England-Australia First Test, and Hitler’s recent visit, to Italy.