"STREET SCENE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21110, 18 February 1932, Page 13

"STREET SCENE."

FINE FILM FOR REGENT. Hailed by overseas critics aud public ' (like as a drama, of intense interest, "Street Scene." to commence a season at the Regent Theatre to-morrow is assured of a. popular reception by Auckland audiences. The original play, written by Elmer Rice, who also adapted it to the audiiile, screen, enjoyed a successful ran in New York, where it was played for six hundred performances. The deft, direction of King Vidor, the well-known producer, is discernible . throughout, and he successfully captures the vital drama of the plav, a version of which has appeared in five languages. Sylvia Sidney, who won wide acclaim for her performance in "An American Tragedy," plays the romantic lead, while / she is capably supported by William Collier, junior. Estelle Taylor follows her brilliant, pprformance in "Cimarron'' with a fine character study of Mrs. Maurrant. Other members of the cast, who comprised the original st'igc players, arc Beulah Boridi, David Landau, Russell Hoptou, Anna Kostarit and Greta Granstedt. "Street Scene" is replete with human interest, and if is unusual. An overseas writer says: "Not so much with the but more so with the people whose jives radiate from its rusty brown stono houses, is the play concerned. A girl Who knows her mother to be unfaithful. ®n insensiti\e, cruel father, a. cynical ■Jewish Socialist trying to read a purpose into life, voung love trying to rise above the squalor and misery, a lonesome •Woman, hungry for someone to talk to — there are, the strings that King Vidor Weaves trifether as the play relentlessly ftoves towarl the hysterical murder that neither ends the p'lav nor solves life's mystery. For thf first lime in screen history, in fstreet Scene." a picture is taken in its , irety within the confines of a single Set.. The action takes place on t-he reet, mostly on the steps of one house, he camera, does not enter the house and here are no 'close-up?.' King Vidor and »ainuel Goldwyn meant 'Street Scene' to e a departure, from the ordinary. To produce the film every detail of a tenement block in New York's 'YCKst Sixties' ' a .® recreated with the most, complete) OthenUcity. the houses, the occupants, e passers-by, street noises, traffic, even the 'elevated' railway, where, an actual was built, to create the noises that among the undertones of the picture."