"MARY OF SCOTLAND"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22544, 8 October 1936, Page 15

"MARY OF SCOTLAND"

FILM FOR CIVIC THEATRE Drawn directly from the page's of history, the R.K.O. Radio Films' production, "Mary of Scotland," which is to be shown for tho first time in Auckland at the Civic Theatre to-morrow, offers an intensely moving story of a hapless queen and a hapless woman whose greatest loves were the loves of country, national pride and religion. They were loves which brought down upon her the wrath and vengeance of another Queen, Elizabeth of England, and finally resulted in her death on tho executioner's block.

Offering wide contrasts of tranquillity and conspiracy, peace and war, the film faithfully preserves the panorama of historical events, but emphasises the dramatic and romantic elements in a story which provides entertainment of a type which is far too Beldom seen on the screen to-day. It depicts the beauty of a great love and an unrivalled patriotism. It exposes a skein of shocking treachery, treason and disloyalty. It reveals a conflict of mental, physical, religious and martial forces, interspersed with occasional touches of horror and even of stark tragedy. Naturally, tho dramatisation of such a story on the screen calls for acting of more than ordinary ability, and it is a tribute to the skill of the casting director that in Katharine Hepburn he has discovered the actress to whom the part of Mary is ideally suited. The high standard of Miss Hepburn's previous performances is well maintained in the present film, in which she rises to dramatic heights. Fredric March has a role packed with courageous dash and gallant abandon as the Earl of Bothwell, Mary's staunch supporter, while other important parts are capably portrayed by John Carradine, Douglas Walton and lan Keith.