EMPIRE THEATRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18198, 19 March 1921, Page 6

EMPIRE THEATRE

Special interest attaches to “Crooked Streets,” the new feature at the Empire, Theatre, by reason of the fact that it is founded on Miss Ethel Clayton’s actual adventures whilst touring the' Orient recently. Miss Clayton was kidnapped and held to ransom for several days, to the great anxiety of her relatives. In the film Miss Clayton is oast' as Gail Ellis, a girl who is led by the lure of the East to accept a position as secretary to a professor who is about to sail for China. Once there the girl is observed by a mandarin, who bribes her coolie to take her into the slums, where he is waiting. The girl springs from, the rickshaw, followed close by an acquaintance named O’Dare, who has been watching, in the expectation of trouble. She is captured by a passing group of sailors, whose leader agrees to fight O’Dare, with the girl as the prize. O’Dare wins, and returns. tp the hotel with Gail, and there reveals him-, self as a secret service agent. He is about to arrest .the professor’s party as smugglers, but one of them is too quick for him and covers him from behind. Gail, however, creeps out and brings the police, who turn the tables on the smugglers, to whom she discloses her real identity as an officer of the United States Revenue Department. The friendship between herself and O’Dare deepens into something stronger, and so the story reaches a happy ending. Excellent supports and special music by the orchestra add to the attraction o£ the programme. «. «