AMUSEMENTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19583, 12 September 1925, Page 21

AMUSEMENTS.

OCTAGON THEATRE. “THE LOST WOULD." A REMARKABLE PICTURE. It must bo extremely difficult now for picture producers to discover a theme that is at once both novel and striking, but in their picture, “The Lost World, the First National Company has certainly achieved (bis much-desired result. I 1 or the leading ideas of this elaborate and ambitious production the producers axe indebted to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whoso dramatic and highly imaginative story has provided them with material for a picture full of thrills, with a wholesome love interest, and in many parts most amusing. The advent of the much-heralded picture “The Lost World’’ at the Octagon Theatre waa anticipated with much interest, and was followed with keen enjoyment at both the matinee and evening sessions yesterday. The very array at the outset of the names of those responsible lor different sections of the work entailed in the production of this huge picture prepare one for its proportions, but though it is all carried out on the grand scale there is also the most scrupulous attention to detail. One of the central figures in the story is Professor Challenger, who returns to London from the vast wilds of the upper roaches of the Amazon with incredible tales of bis discovery there of a lost world peopled with the antediluvian monsters whose remains are agreed by the scientists who pore over them to bo millions of years old. Professor Challenger’s tales uro not received with much sympathy by the London scientific world, but an expedition is fitted out to return and investigate the lost world. Among tho party are Malone, a young newspaper reporter, whose lady love has .challenged him to do some great and daring deed, Sir John Roxton, big game hunter and sportsman in every sense of the word, and tho beautiful Paula White and her father, tho professor. Tho expedition succeeds in reaching the lost world, and there they —and the patrons of the picture—are startled and astounded and at times terrified—at tho huge, ungainly creatures they behold. These prehistoric monsters, with names as ungainly as their bodies, cause the members of the party many an anxious hour. One of them, for instance, dislodges a tree trunk that formed the only bridge over a chasm and so isolates a section of tho party that for n time they despair of finding means of escape. Eventually their release is brought about by a pet monkey, which climbs up tho sheen* face of a cliff and brings with him a cord, to which is attached a rope ladder. A feature of the picture is the number of fights “staged” between these weird creatures, and the realistic manner in which they bite and tussle and struggle leaves one wondering how it is all contrived. In one case one beast hurls the other over a precipice into a river. Another exciting episode is the outbreak of a volcano, which sots fire to the forest. Numbers of these forest denizens are seen fleeing in terror from the flames. Just before returning, the nartv contrives to trap and secure an “allosaurus,” 110 ft long from its nose to the tip of its tail, and they eonvev it to London as a guarantee of good faith to the sceptical inhabitants of the big city. Fortunately, or unfortunately, allosaurus breaks loose as he is being landed, and the scenes that follow are extremely amusing as well as distinctly ingenious. Allosaurus is seen parading the London streets at night with the crowds scattering in wild terror before him. Now and then ho oversets a monument ami enrnohew it or pokes the corner off a sixstorey building to see what it is like inside." In (ho end lie drops through the Tower Bridge into the water of the Thame's. A-s for the love story, it may ho sufficient to say that all goes well with Malone, and that Sir John Roxton' is a true sport, to the Inst. Tho acting in tho picture is of a uniformly ihigh standard, and the photography 13 a-fine illustration of tho perfection that can now he attained in this, branch of tho art. The high-class musical programme supplied by (ho Octagon Orchestra, under the baton of Mr A. F. Neate, addl’d not a little to the pleasure of tho evening’s entertainment. This memorable picture will bo shown at a matinee at the Octagon Theatre this afternoon and again this evening. EMPIRE THEATRE. "MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB.” "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab” is nn old identity in the literature of New Zealand. and was written hy Fergus Hume, a younger member of a Dunedin family well known many years ago. He was. ns a matter of fact, an employee of a leading firm of Dunedin solicitors when he wrote "The Hansom Cab Mystery,” though hia forensic attainments at that, time had not made him prominent in the legal profession. The Hume family was brilliant in different directions: Fergus ns a novelist (though “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab” was without doubt the best thing ho , ever produced), Miss Mary Hume ns a soprano with great musical capabilities, and Miss Bessie Hume as a vocalist with nn unusually rich contralto voice. Those two ladies appeared many years ago in opera (“II Trovntore”), which was staged by Signor Carmini Morely, then a resident of Dunedin. lie, like the Misses Hume, has passed away. That gives an idea of what sort of family Fergus Hume, the author of “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab” belonged to. “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab,” in book form, is most interesting, and will generally be acknowledged as being a clover production. The story lends itself to the picture screen, but it reuuires careful handling to make it acceptable to presentday taste. Tho screen version witnessed at the Empire Theatre for the first time yesterday has certainly emanated from someone with a knowledge of bow a radiea> change from print to screen should be made to the best possible advantage, for the sake of both author and patron of the picture theatre. Possibly the trial of Brian Fitzgerald for the murder of Oliver Whyte might be curtailed to some slight degree, but with that solitary exception no one who stops to think could be otherwise but perfectly satisfied with the screen production of a most interesting and thrilling story, screened as it at present is at the Empire Theatre. So far as the photographic work is concerned, the unanimous opinion must be that) it is as nearly per feet as present-day methods permit. Thou the characters, even down to the “old bag,” who lives in a disreputable tjuartcr of Melbourne, arc exceedingly well presented. Mr Arthur Shirley fills the part of the hero, Brian Fitzgerald,, remarkably well. Mr Shirley is an arrival from America in Australia, whore the screen version of Hume’s book has been very cleverly produced, and gives a very convincing representation of the much-tried Brian. His acting is natural, and lie is never artificial. It is unnecessary to give the complete cast, every part is well tilled. Tho girl devoted to Brian is very well represented, also her father, whose foolish marriage provides an incentive for the crime of murder, in order that a blackmailer may extort money by flourishing a marriage certificate in front of a man not far away from his grave owing to heart trouble. The detective “business” i: not oven overdone. —which is rather unusual in moving picture productions. Ho is frequently more amusing than interesting. Hern, heroine, father, blackmailer, detective, Mrs Guttersnipe, as the old lady of the purlieus ic, called, her daughter, and the rest engaged in the cast meet requirements exceptionally well. Tho story, the foundation of which was laid in Australia, deals with every phase of life from the social standard to the lowest depths of the slums. No trouble has been spared in the effort to make the film version of the story complete and up-to-date in every respect, and libera! culling has been done so ns to present only tho best scenes that wore filmed while the picture was in course of preparation. If additional proof of the ability of Australians to turn out motion pictures of the highest standard required it will, it is claimed, bo found in this Goldwyn fdm of 8000 ft. The artists supporting Mr Shirley have, it, is claimed, entered into their work with a remarkably good realisation of what was reouired of them, with the result that the film may he regarded as a singularly pleasing one. and one that will do credit to the producers and provide satisfaction to the public. “'Hie Mystery of a Hansom Cab” is strongly supported by a comeilv coded “Itching for Revenge,” an International News, and a second comedy. “The Kick in High Life,” The Empire Orchestra, which has established a reputation for itself, plavs the overture to Sullivan’? “Gondoliers,” tho Fifth Hungarian Dance (Brahms); Intermezzo from Cavalleria Riistieana (Mascagni); entr-acte. Gavotte from Mignon (Thomas); and Air Louis XIII (Ghys).

QUEEN'S THEATRE. A society drama, entitled "The Breath ol Scandal,” heads the new programme at the Queen's Theatre. The story tolls how the mother of the heroine is too absorbed in her family affairs to note that her hnsband is being estranged from his wife. Ho ho* an “affair" with the divorced wii'a of a prominent bminoas man. The wAosa