PLAZA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 745, 19 August 1929, Page 15

PLAZA

“THE MIDNIGHT TAXI” Thrills of a dozen detective tales, mystery stories, and best-selling romances, have been crammed into the making of “The Midnight Taxi,” the part-talking picture now at the Plaza Theatre, in which there are rumrunners, hijackers, bond thieves, gempurloiners, thugs of every ilk, confidence men, cops, taxis, runaway trains, and hurtling airplanes. It is a thriller of the kind that tingles down one f s spine and up again, and makes one forget oneself so completely that you come out of the theatre as you might make your exit from a hurricane.

Antonio Moreno adds to his previous scenes of fiery Spanish love, the dash and verve of the adventurer, for he is east as a millionaire who joins the fortunes of the king of the rumrunners, for the excitement the life offers.* Engaged in transporting liquor from Los Angeles to Vancouver, he encounters s<pme of the wildest goingson that the screen has ever registered. Helene Costello is seen as an apparently unsophisticated girl, whose business it is to track down the bond robbers, who are also on the rum special. It is a foregone conclusion that she meets Moreno. Myrna Loy augments her fame in another part of the same calibre. “The Midnight Ta.xi” is a picture that is thoroughly exciting and enjoyable. The Plaza’s new programme also includes several new Vitaphone all-talkie features. Chief among these are songs and items by Daphne Pollard, one of England’s famous comediennes; comedy by O’Niell and Vermont; songs by the Harrington Sisters; songs by Allan Prior, the celebrated Australian tenor; and jazz by Rover Kahn’s Orchestra. Finally, there are some amazing scenes of an airplane refuelling in midair during a 150 hours’ record endurance flight.