PLAZA AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 508, 10 November 1928, Page 14

PLAZA AND TIVOLI

COMEDY AND DRAMA The old-fashioned spectator who sits back in his seat and just “dares” the picture to make him laugh, meets defeat at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres this week, where the comedy “Vamping Venus” is being screened. Here is a picture which is called a comedy, but which is much more than that. It not only keeps the audiences in a continuous roar of laughter, but it is also a spectacle, an artistic revelation and a series of eye-filling and amazing views of Ancient Greece at its grandest. First National has taken the story of a New York politician, who is knocked unconscious in a cabaret brawl and dreams he is in Ancient Greece, and made it one of the biggest pictures of the year. Charlie Murray was the natural choice for the politician and he fills the bill to perfection. Murray is in his element as King Cassidy r of Ireland, and his antics, together with those of Louise Fazenda, who plays his nagging wife, cause chuckles to grow into laughs and laughs into roars of merriment. We follow Murray from the night club where he meets disaster into a series of amazing experiences in Athens of the olden days. We see the gods and goddesses at play, and Murray always making merry in their midst. Of course, his political sagacity causes him to become political dictator of the land, and he rules with an iron hand until revolution comes. Then more fun transpires, the picture ending with everyone in the theatre weak from laughter. Strong unrelieved drama is the characteristic of the second big attraction at these theatres, “The Wheel of Chance.” The story is about two brothers, and strange to say the same actor portrays them both. This feat is carried out by Richard Barthelmess, an exceptionally capable actor. By chance twin brothers are separated in childhood. One grows up to manhood in the favourable environment of a good home in New York and becomes a successful barrister. The other brother sinks lower and lower and finally commits a brutal murder. The case is prosecuted by his own twin brother, although neither know of the relationship.