OLD BLENDS WITH NEW

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 388, 23 June 1928, Page 15

OLD BLENDS WITH NEW

FILMS AND FOLK-LORE AT MAJESTIC Ancient arts and new formed the basis of the delightful programme staged at the Majestic Theatre last night, when Princess To Puea’s Maori troupe entered the second week of its season, and Greta Garbo was introduced in “The Divine Woman” to charm the hearts of Aucklanders. Of Greta Garbo it might be said that her beauty and bewitching personality penetrate the sophistication of even the hardened picture-goer. Something about this blonde, slender Norse star, whose fairness echoes the Viking strain that must run strongly in her blood, places her beyond classification with the usual group of motion-picture actresses. She is, first of all, a star who has unusual dramatic gifts, who played with wonderful sincerity, a sincerity touched with both vivacity and tempestuousness, the part of the actress confronted at once by triumphant success in her profession. and bitter tragedy in her love. The story in which her yearning for the stage separates her from her soldier-lover, who had deserted the colours of his beloved France so that he might remain at her alluring -side, and in which the brilliant flowers of success wither in her grasp, returning her, when she is at the point of death after an effort to suicide by gas-poisoning, to the bosom of the man she loves, is said to have taken its inspirtion from the life of that great emotional stage figure. Sarah Bernhardt; and it is appropriate that the colour and romance of the stage, masking tragedy and petty selfishness, should have been drawn from so eminent an inspiration to be expressed in the supreme beauty and passion of Greta Garbo. Faultlessly produced by MetroGoldwyn, this picture, with its faithful and at times profoundly impressive atmosphere, in which Lars Hanson, a manacled soldier, moves as a sorrowful foil to physical appeal of the star, must be grouped with the greatest of those which have built the Majestic’s fine traditions. Coupled with such an attraction as Te Puea’s Maori troupe, it forms the bulk of a bill of commanding merit and absorbing interest. Last evening, before seeing the veil stripped from history in the act in which Te Puea’s graceful maidens twirl their pois and sing in melodious rhythm, while behind them stand the gesticulating warriors, tense in every arresting pose, challenging in word and movement, the crowded Maj- ! estic saw the world of overseas flashed i before it in a pictorial which showed j horses baulking and falling at’the difii- 1 cult hurdles on the famous Grand j National course at Ain tree, and Cam- j

bridge romping home from the exhausted Oxford crew in the historic race on the Thames. The audience saw also, a comedy in which the breeziest and most amusing elements of film humour wore happily j | combined, and it took these pleasures j j to the accompaniment - of a musical j ! programme 'chosen with characteristic i j discrimination and executed with char- I j acteristic skill, by Air. Whiteford i Waugh's musicians. .