"CRADLE SONG"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21763, 31 March 1934, Page 14

"CRADLE SONG"

CIVIC'S EASTER FILM A tender story of a ntm's love for an adopted child 'is presented in "Cradle Soup," which will open its New Zealand season at the Civic Theatre to-day. Dorothea Wieck, a young Swiss actress, who astonished critics by her brilliant performance in the German production "Madchen in Uniform," gives a moving portrayal as Joanna, an orphan who mothers a family of Spanish village children. Her life's ambition is to become a nun, but she finds that after she enters a convent she is not completely happy on account of her great.love for the children she has left. When a child is. left at the convent she is allowed to look after it, and the little girl grows up to love her foster-mother. However, the girl goes out and falls in love with an engineer, and she is torn between her desire to' see tho world and her wish to please her foster-mftther by becoming a nun. Miss Wieck's part calls for tenderness, humility, grace and humanity, and she finds no difficulty in portraying all these emotions with ease. Evelyn Venable, a newcomer to the screen, is sympathetic as the orphan girl, and Sir Guy Standing, exactly conveys the impression of one of those doctors who know as much about the human heart as the- human body. Louise Dresser gives a restrained performance, and others in tho cast are Kent Taylor, as the engineer, Nydia Westman, Dickie Moore and Mischa Auer. The film, which was adapted from a play by Martinez Sierra, was directed by Mitchell Leisen. The reputation that the Civic Theatre has established for supporting programmes of a high order is fnlly maintained by the fine selection of shorter films, and an excellent evening's entertainment ia assured.