GILDA GRAY SEEN IN SPECTACULAR ROLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18575, 25 September 1928, Page 7

GILDA GRAY SEEN IN SPECTACULAR ROLE.

Amongst all the spectacular pictures shown at Crystal Palace, “The Devil Dancer” holds high rank. For the first time, the movies have gone for setting and theme to that mysterious and wonderful land. Tibet, shut out from Western civilisation by the great Himalayas. It is a land from which pushing, determined, inquisitive European explorers have been sternly turned back with unmistakable warnings, sometimes with £unishment for their presumption hasa is still “The Forbidden City.” Surely there is no better subject for the type of story that fascinates the public. There certainly are difficulties in the way of making it natural and realistic; but it must be confessed that Mr Fred Xiblo has successfully overcome them all in the wonderful picture he has made for the United Artists Pictures, with the title "The Devil Dancer.”

The Devil Dancer is no demon, no fantastic, weird creation of the imagination but a particularly attractive, typical English girl, blue-eved, graceful, and beautiful far above the average. Taken by the Black Lamas when she is an infant, she is reared in the halls of a devil temple, a strange, exotic figure in those surroundings. Her blood is English, but her manners and ideas are Tibetan. Into her life there comes an Englishman, an alert, open-minded, chivalrous man, bearing the stamp of an imperial race, a man standing for ideas she had never known. He carries her away from the temple, and takes her to a small Himalayan village. There follows the dramatic unfolding of her temperament in the colourful background of India, and in the select and critical Anglo-Indian society. The young Englishman’s horrified sister has Takla kidnapped by a travelling company of nautch-dancers.

She dances so well that she becomes the sensation of Delhi. She is followed there by her English lover, and by an emissary of the Lamas. Intrigues, plots and assassinations end in the happiest climax, which is all that art, storytellers and picture .patrons demand. Miss Gilda Gray is worth seeing for her dancing alone. In this picture, it is claimed, she gives a devil dance identical with dances* performed in Tibetan temples for ages. Be this as it may, they are very effective. They have a peculiar attraction, conveying a sense of strangeness and of mystery, combined with an expression of primitive ideas. Apart from this important desideratum. Miss Gray has natural talents as an actress, and these, evidently. she has trained and cultivated to a high degree. Mr Clive Brook takes the part of Miss Gray's sweetheart in “The Devil Dancer." In the cast is Mr Serge -Ternoff, a Russian refugee, son of a Siberian fur-trader. He was with the White Army, and, it is stated, rode long distances over Siberia and escaped over the Manchurian border. He went to Mr Samuel Goldwvn for work as a dancing instructor, and was engaged for one of the leading parts in “The Devil Dancer/’ By a happy inspiration, Miss Muriel Wilton, of Wellington, was engaged to produce a prologue to this picture, a prologue of stage dances similar to the religious and symbolic dances in the picture. It is sufficient to state that • •he vies with Miss Gray in gfrice and art. Those who saw her last night were so delighted with her dancing that they recalled her three times. Mr A. J. Bunz arranged a particularly interesting and instructive programme for the Symphony Orchestra, it opened with Puccini's “La Boheme.” Woodforde-Finden’s “Four Indian Love Lyrics” fitted in with the picture, as did Bosley’s “Portrait of a Dancer in Red.” Amongst other items were Humphries's “Lotus Blossom,” Nicholls’s “Shalimar.” Luiginis “Second Suite,” "Ballet Egvptien.” Houghton’s “Zulaikha,” and Finck’s “Bacchanalia.”