Youth and Age

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 672, 25 May 1929, Page 25

Youth and Age

TALKIE PROBLEM FILM “Mother Knows Best” for Strand

SHOULD a girl sacrifice romance and domestic happiness to gratify her mother’s high-flung ambition? That is the problem presented and solved in “Mother Knows Best,” a William Pox part-talkie for the Strand. This new drama is considered to be among the best of the new-style pictures.

Adequate production, a powerful story, good photography, and a strong cast combine to place "Mother Knows Best” on a level of its own.

Though a typical “problem” picture, it is by no means one oC those dull, lifeless films which sacrifice everything in an effort to drive home the right moral. On the contrary, “Mother Knows Best” glints and sparkles with scenes of stage life, cabaret nights, and musical shows. Stories of the stage, and the lives and loves of the artists thereon, have been enjoying immense popularity of

■te. “Mother Knows Best” is one of Lese, and one of the best yet ar-

mged for projection on an Auckland :reen.

The cast is headed by Madge Bellamy, whose work is outstanding. The picture places her among the finest artists of the screen, for she shoulders the huge responsibilities of the part with effortless

grace and ability. Second only to Madge Bellamy is Louise Dresser, as the mother. Her work is magnificently real —always convincing, never overdrawn. In the talking sequence she is particularly successful.

The story tells of a girl who is thrust up the ladder of vaudeville success by her ambitious mother. Beginning in a series of downtown “trials,” she reaches the “top lines” of Broadway. At that altitude she meets the boy (Barry Norton). A love affair develops, but the young couple are parted by the mother, who foresees the danger to herself. Later the mother and daughter go to France, where the girl undertakes to sing to the troops. There she meets the Boy once more, hut again they are parted by the mother. The heart of the girl is broken. Fame is hers, but it means nothing to her. She becomes overwrought, and suffers a nervous breakdown from which she does not recover. When she dies with the name of the Boy on her lips, mother realises, too late, that she did not “know best.”