AMUSEMENTS

Nelson Evening Mail, 16 November 1916, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS

- PERMANENT PICTURES. The programme as -presented at tb9 Empire Theatre last night was a most attractive on*. The star picture was R Xasky attraction, a 6000 ft star drama, '•The Arab." Jamil, son <>i" the sheik, rob? a merchant's caravan. The merchant later demands shelter from the sheik and the recital of his wrongs m- , duces the old man tn give him his sons favourite horse. The son vows death to the man lie shall find riding his favourite. In the city the horse is given hv the Turkish governor, who has commandeered it, to a pretty, mission teacher She is overjoyed with the gift, but dislikes the giver', and rides the horse into the desert, where, she meets Jamil. He seizes the horse, and leaves her to •walk-home. About this time a massacre of' Christians is organised, and the sheik consents to take the blame of it if his son is found and returned. The horse leads to the finding of Jamil, who then complicates matter? by announcing his intention of "becoming a Christian if the girl he made walk will be his teacher. The massacre commences, and the Turkish governor induces the American Girl to enter his palace for protection. The sheik has died, the Bedouins are lookim? for a. new leader and the day is saved. The girl and her father leave for America, promising to return to Jamil, -who waves them a sad farewell over the desert. A Vitagraph Comedy "The Lure o£ the-Widow.." ajid. a most interesting Path.e ' Gazette are ; included in the "series. This programme ■will be finally screened this evening. Country tour: Richmond to-night. PEOPLE'S PICTURES. The leadincr feature of the new programme shown to a large audience -last evening was a film version of Alexandre Dumas" great novel. "Aux 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 stanos for the first create dip into French novel reading. It & the book one smuggled home, clothed in an- innocent brown paper cover, and struggled through its pages with a dicticnarv. 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, or 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 train" alone as the result ' of the 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 forwar through time and snace into one's own" soul as he sat writing of the tragedy of Marguerite 'Gautier and Armand Dnval: Meanwhile youth goes ■wrong, and pays for it now as always. And surely as it has been ordained, that we for our sins should be ever stretching out to grasp happiness where happiness is not, so surely will the life story of JVlarguerie Gautier. who also tried and failed, remain evergreen. Marguerite was a girl, who having sacrificed her place in our cruel social system, made .the desperate but generally hopeless attempt to hold a- real love that came to lier 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 and desire. The present film version of the novel is tv-»the Caesar Company, the beautiful Italian actress. Francesca Bertini, being cast for the name part. ■Another fine film. "The Shanty ;at Trembling Hill." features Francis Bushman : Warren Kerrigan is also to\be seen in * 'The Golden Ladder." a splendid one-reel drama. The final screening of this programme will take place this evening.