NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 676, 30 May 1929, Page 15

NEW REGENT

“ALIAS JIMMY VALENTINE” COMING That fine character actor. Lgn Chaney, gives one of his best portrayals in his latest picture, “West of Zanzibar,” now at the New Regent Theatre. No matter what type he is called upon to portray,, he makes it live on the screen. Auckland audiences may have seen Chaney in a similar characterisation before, but so perfectly has he mastered the art of make-up and character that each presentation appears as something new, novel and refreshingly different and interesting. As “Dead Legs,” the cruel, vengeful and tyrannical white ruler of the jungle “West of Zanzibar.” he adds another vivid and remarkable performance to the list of his greatest screen triumphs.. The picture opens in London with Chaney as a smalltime magician. Me tries to prevent his wife from going away with another man, and in the ensuing fight is permanently crippled for life. Some time later he finds his wife abandoned in death and a baby girl by her side. Believing that the girl belongs to the lover, and wild with rage and grief, he dedicates his life to vengeance on both. The scene then shifts to Zanzibar, and it is here that Chaney gives an unforgettable performance. His method of getting revenge, his fercrcious brutality, the swift and thrililng development of events leading up to a startling climax, holds the spectator completely absorbed. Among others in the cast are Lionel Barrymore, Warner Baxter and Mary Nolan. The stage’s greatest play brought to the screen by the movies’ most popular comedian. That is William Haines’s new .starring picture, “Alias Jimmy Valentine,” which comes to the Regent, with talking sequences, on Saturday. Elaines plays another of the gorgeously human roles which won him such great popularity in “Excess Baggage.” The wise-cracking comedian has added a dose of humanness and pathos to his characterisation which lifts him into the forefront of screen acting. The story is the old familiar one that has brought tears and laughter to audiences for a generation. Haines is the wise crook who upsets the police departments of half a dozen cities and virtually defies arrest. He is aided in his nefarious assaults on society by two of the funniest crooks the screen has ever seen, Karl Dane and Tully Marshall. Opposing them is the detecti\*e, played by Lionel Barrymore, a grim and seemingly heartless personality that yet is as natural and human as any role the great actor has as yet enacted. Tho drama of this great story is wonderfully well brought out by the talking. A new programme of short talkies will also be presented on Fridaly. Paul Lukas and Ruth Chatterton will have the leading roles in the Paramount all-dialogue picture, “The Constant Wife,” which has been adapted to the talking screen from the wellknown play by W. Somerset Maugham Ethel Barrymore played the feminist lead in the stage play on Broadway.