“ONE NIGHT OF LOVE”

Taranaki Daily News, 9 March 1935, Page 4

“ONE NIGHT OF LOVE”

FINE PREMIERE PROGRAMME.

OPENING OF STATE THEATRE. “One Night of Love,” the most successful musical picture exhibited in New Zealand in some considerable time, was the release chosen by the management of the new State Theatre, New Plymouth, for the premiere programme last night. There can be no shadow of doubt that the film has deserved its popularity. A whimsical romance of light, almost flamboyant, vein is hung upon a skeleton of grand opera excerpts, magnificently sung by Grace Moore and magnificently staged by the studio's technicians. Of charming personality and with probably the most accurately -recording soprano yet heard in talkies, the Metropolitan Opera House prima donna has crystallised operatic art in celluloid. Both her voice and her dramatic ability are superb.

The show moves with a briskness of action and sustains plot interest at a pitch seldom seen in musicales. The dramatic tension of two of the most famous arias of “Madame Butterfly” round off the “straight” sequences of the production in. an almost uncannily clever fashion. Possibly the secret of the success of “One Night of Love” lies in the success of a first attempt io combine the emotional situation with emotional music of heavy calibre. “One Night of Love” is definitely a picture production experiment. Just as definitely it is a magnificently successful experiment, and as such holds a quality of refreshing novelty. No detail of direction is overlooked. Lovers of opera will rejoice in the finesse displayed by the producer in actually changing the technical quality of Grace Moore’s songs after the story had progressed her to the tuition of Tullio Carminatti, who palys tlie maestro in the story of a young singer’s rise to fame. The actual recording of the film on the new wide range system is remarkably exact and lifelike. The gala audience at the State last night enjoyed every moment of an excellently balanced evening’s entertainment.