AMUSEMENTS

Nelson Evening Mail, 15 November 1916, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS

V PERMANENT PICTURES. The Empire Theatre was again well attended last- : evening, when the third episode of "The Singaree" serial was -•followed- with great interest by the audience. To-night there will be a complete change of programme, featuring a Laskv attraction, a- 5000 ft star drama-, "The Arab." Jamil, son of the sheik, robs a merchant's caravan. The merchant later demands shelter from the sheik, and the recital of his wrongs induces the old. man to give him his son s favourite horse. The son vows death to the man he shall find riding his fav- , oarite. In the city the horse is given by the Turkish governor, who has com- • mandeered it, to a pretty mission teach- ? er. She is overjoyed- with the gift, but ; dislikes the giver, and rides the horse •i into the desert, where she .meets Jamil, i'"'He seizes the horse, and leaves her to j -walk home. About this time a massacre f of Christians is organised, and the sheik g consents to take the blame of it if his 's• son is found and The horse pleads to the finding of Jamil, who then % complicates matters by announcing his p intention of becoming a Christian if the girl lie made walk will he his teacher. f-The inassacre commences, and the TurkS ish-governor . induces the American girl ■to enter his palace for protection. The ttsheik has . died, the Bedouins are looking for -a new leader and the day is T saved. .The girl and her father leave ■- for America, promising to return to i Jamil, who waves them a sad farewell £ over the desert. A, Vitaeraph Comedy. "The Lure of . the Widow," and a most interesting Pathe Gazette are in- " eluded in this series. Lfotueka 'will be ;v visited to-night and Richmond on jy' Thursday. PEOPLE'S PICTURES. ftp A complete change of programme will j be shown at the Theatre Royal to-night. ,the-leading feature being a.film version jr of Alexandre Dumas' great work, "Aux t' Dame Des Camellias." There is no work ' -of fiction in existence with an. appeal : more : various than this.. To the young and callow mind, it'stands for the •, first ; great dip into "French, novel Tea ding. It '• ife the book one smuggled home, clothed in an . innocent hrown paper cover, ;> and struggled through its pages with a dictionary. and a mighty and exhilarating , : sense of new-born , iniquity: For the older reader "The Ladv of the Camellias" has the fascination of a mirror held up to nature. There, are .moments -where it grips as with a hand on the shoulder, oij a -clutch at the throat, a clutch so powerful and so real it is difficult to believe the whole sensation arises from within the reader's "brain alone as the result-

ofthe genius of „a dead and gone author. Now and then one will pause in reading _ . the book with a sense that the spirit of Dumas fils must have been looking forjT-, war through: time and into one'? - own soul as he sat writing of tra.f gedy of Marguerite Gautier and- Ar- •" mand Xhival. Meanwhile youth goes v vrrong, and pays for it now as-always. > And surely as it has been that ■ we for our sins-should: be ever: stretching ""out to grasp ■ • is not, so surely will the ,life story- of Marguerie Gautier, who also tried and failed-, remain evergreen. Marguerite "was a girl, who having sacrificed her •place- in our cruel social , system, madp the desperate but generally hopeless attempt to hold a Teal love that came to - her too late. Armand Duval,; her lover, is the prototype, of every young fellow of • this: or. any age who is broken between the resistless wheels of convention arid desire. The present film version of the novel is by the Caesar Company, the beautiful Italian actress,. Francesco Bertini, being cast for the name part. Another fine film. - r . "The Shanty at Trembling Hill." features Francis Bushman: Warren- Kerrigan-is also to be seen in "The Golden Ladder/' a splendid -one-reel drama.