INGLEWOOD TALKIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1935, Page 2

INGLEWOOD TALKIES.

“GREAT EXPECTATIONS. “Great Expectations” comes to the screen of the Inglewood Thea tic to-day and to-morrow with the real Dickens flavour untoi .ched, right out of the pages of one of the most human, absorbing and dramatic novels conceived by this greatest of English novelists, an ever-living classic of literature. The story of “Great Expectations” will never grow old. It is just as fascinating and thrilling to-day as it was when Dickens wrote it, almost a hundred years ago, in his beloved house at Gadshill. The story is full of descriptions'of the countryside surrounding his home of the Kentish lanes he loved so well; but it is also vivid with scenes of the London of his day, for Dickens was a great cosmopolitan figure and could write of that great city and its people with more understanding than any other writer has been able to do.

One of the most interesting scenes in “Great Expectations” is the Cheapside Inn, “Lily and the Swan.” The various signs on it, such as “Coffee Room,” “Coach Office,” etc., were faithfully copied from books such as Cruikshanks “Days of Dickens” and actual places in which Charles Dickens himself stayed. The inn itself is of the hotel variety and is not to be confused with the common English “pub.” The “Coffee Room” in such inns was always tne rendezvous of the better class, while

the lower class too* their drinks in the “tap room,” as it was called. Quite often, the post office was part of the inn. which was also the booking office for coaches in those days. So much attention was paid to getting the proper Dickensian flavour by Universal in the making of this film, that hardly a detail was overlooked. ’For example “Jagger’s” home, where a great deal of the action in the story takes place, is dignified in the extreme, the

furniture suiting perfectly its decidedly massive master. The selection of Chippendale and Hepplewhite furniture, the pieces of old needlework, on the walla and chairs, ai. the fine sporting prints, the dumb waiter table, silver, etc., all go to make up a most interesting and realistic picture. A cast of unusual merit interprets th> well known characters of “Great Expectations,” Henry Hull, Florence Reed, Phillips Holmes and Jane Wyatt.