ATTRACTIONS FOR THE WEEK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17781, 26 February 1926, Page 5

ATTRACTIONS FOR THE WEEK.

ORBATI* CKTSTAL PALACE . . “ MARRY MB " CRYSTAL PALACE . . “ THRU BBT'S ’* ORAVS THEATRE “ TUMBLEWEEDS ” THEATRE “ TER WHITE MOHXEY ” THEATRE “ Til DIXIE HAVSICAP ” LIRIRTT THEATRE . . *« THIS WOHAK ” QUIRK'S THEATRE “ THE RED RIDER ” QUEER'S THEATRE •• BUSTER, BB GOOD.” ITBRTBODT'S THEATRE “ WIHDS OP CHANCE ” THIATRB ROYAL .OUT SATES POST COMPANY TILLER'S OPERA SOUSE . . REYUH AND YAUDETILIR

“The Dark Angel,'’ a First National production coming to Everybody's Theatre on Monday, brings to the screen a new star in the person of Vilma Banky. who was “discovered'’ in Budapest by Samuel Goldwyn, the famous producer, while on a pleasure tour of the Continent. The picture is full of dramatic power, and tells a very appealing story. It concerns the heroic sacrifice made by a soldier who loses his sight in the Great War, and the constancy of the girl for whom he offered to give up all. Captain Trent left his sweetheart, all he had to live for then, at Dover, and after being left in the trenches for dead and -captured by the Germans he returned to England strong and well, but blind. Me found that all his people believed him to be dead. lie decided that if he reappeared the girl would insist on carrying out her promise to marry him, thus ruining her chance of happiness Fortunately his rival discovered his retreat, and like a true English gentleman told the girl that her old lover was still alive. Thus he made a sacrifice in his turn and united the girl he loved and his old friend. Miss Banky makes a happy debut in an American production, and Ronald Colman as the soldier lover has never done liner work in a picture. “The Lucky Devil,*’ coming to Greater Crystal Palace next Monday, is a Paramount production, starring Richard Dix, with Esther Ralston as his principal support. Dix has an ideal role in a fast-moving comedy-drama, in which he plays the part of a young clerk who wins an automobile at a charity bazaar, the very machine around which has revolved a sensational breach of promise case. He starts on and meets a very pretty young typist, who is touring with her aunt in an old battered Ford. Judging on the car he is driving they assume that he is the young man of the breach of promise case and quietly give him the slip, then the chase across country commences and incidentally the romance and thrills begin to pile up in a marvellous plot of love and comedy. The story of “Are Parents People?” the second attraction, and also from the Paramount Studios, tells of Lita Hazlitt. whose parents quarrel so much over trivial matters that they obtain a divorce, leaving Lita in a girls’ select finishing school when she refuses to choose between them. Lita starts a romance of her own, much to the consternation of her parents, who eventually come together again and everything is straightened out. “Here is a film” (writes a New York critic) “to stir the captious ones who keep on insisting that the movies remain in a routinary state.” Betty Bronson is the girl and the parts of the parents are in the very capable hands of Adolphe Menjou and Florence Vidor.

“Sinners in Silk,” a Metro-Goldwvn production, is the principal feature at the Gfand Theatre. The picture tells of a prematurely aged man who undergoes the gland treatment and is rejuvenated. The cynical man of the world again looks on life with the fresh eyes of youth, and almost immediately a beautiful young girl arrests his roving fancy. But this girl is the fiancee of another, and it is the peculiar twist given to the lives of the two men which lifts the story to its unusual and tensely interesting climax. The featured players are Adolphe Menjou, Eleanor Boardman and Conrad Nagel. With the exception of a few early scenes at sea, the picture takes its way through the higher strata of New York society. The second feature, “ The Mailman." starring Ralph Lewis "and Johnny Walker is a thrilling drama literally bristling with melodramatic thrills, which are

blended with pathos. Amongst the sensationad scenes are those in which the entire Pacific Fleet is shown in action, and aeroplanes rushing to the rescue. The chase of rum runners and blowing up of a stolen yacht provides another exciting moment. The story deals largely with the undying affection between a father and his son.

“ Sally of the Sawdust," now showing at the Liberty Theatre, is a thrilling and romantic story of circus life, at the same time a rollicking comedy with touches of heart interest and human feeling. American critics rank it as one of the best six pictures of the year. Carol Dempster has the part of Sally, the circus girl, and W. C. Fields, the famous comedian of Ziegfcld’s “ Follies ” that of Professor M'Gargle. a .pompous, smooth talking, quick-witted sharper of the type once to be found around circus shows in America, in whose care Sally was left by her dying mother, who had been cast out from her home when she married a circus man. The tender devotion which enwraps these two strange and captivating travellers is made a thing of exquisite beauty, all the more engaging because of the rich and almost continuous vein of humour in which, by their very natures, they carry on. When the circus goes broke the Professor and Sally find work with a carnival company at Great Meadows, where the rich Judge Foster, Sally's grand-father, lives. Romance conies into Sally’s life, and the story has a happy ending. A young and pretty wife petulantly disappointed at her humdrum surroundings when she could have married a rich man—most dramatists love such a theme, but it has been developed differently in “Peacock Feathers” which will be screened at the Queen’s Theatre on Monday. It. is an entertaining drama of the out-back type—a study of Mime Le Brun, cultured, sensitive, who forsakes a wealthy suitor to marry humble Jerry Chandler on the strength of her love for him and .his uncle's promise of a ranch after his death. Somewhat reminiscent of “ The Lady of Lyons ” theme, the ranch turns out to be a tumbledown shack, and she upbraids Jerry for what she considers his trickery. After many struggles and disappointments she realises her true love for Jerry when he is nearly killed by an avalanche. “Pea-cock Feathers *’ is an entertaining picture with a logical easily-flowing plot and convincing acting. Jacqueline Logan and Cullen Landis are the featured players and are supported by an excellent cast headed by George Fawcett and Ward Crane.