CIVIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 17

CIVIC

SUCCESS OF “SPLINTERS” “Splinters,” now at tlio Civic Theatre, is the first talking picture to be produced at the new Imperial Studios at Elstree by British and Dominions in alliance with His Master’s Voice. So far as popular success is concerned, it is the cast-iron certainty of the year. As far as its emotional virtue is concerned, it is the one picture for which every filmgoer lias been waiting. The merit of “Splinters” lies in its having captured the heart of the singing soldier. The humour and sentiment and drama contained in the picture are proof positive and joyous that, in reality as well as by repute, old soldiers never die, and that the insinuation about their fading away is a libel. “Splinters” is grand stuff, but not enough. One cannot remember any other picture so happily leaving one with an appetite for more. There is sheer joy in every foot of its length. One of the chief joys is Sydney Howard, who, by the most brilliant character comedy, achieved an enormous intellectual vacuum. To arrive at such a result intentionally is a feat rarely encountered in the film world. Although rich in comedy, a very great part of the virtue of this picture is the singing of the men in chorus. That is rousing and inspiring, and will prove unforgettable to many. The men of “Splinters” are soldiers and not actors in costume. The spirit of “Splinters” is that of the men who created the first Army concert party and that of the men, from the trenches, who made the finest audiences that ever sat in a theatre. In the production of “Splinters” there are both romance and reality. The remainder of the programme at the Civic includes several sound gazettes, and a number of enjoyable musical selections. Ted Henkel’s Civic Concert Orchestra plays the overture, “Gondoliers” (Sullivan) and Fred Scholl plays a humorous novelty feature.