FILM OF THRILLS SHOWN AT QUEEN’S.

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

FILM OF THRILLS SHOWN AT QUEEN’S.

A thrilling race between a motor-car and a train is the centrepiece of this week’s attraction at the Queen’s Theatre. The film is “The Speeding Venus,” and Priscilla Dean heads the cast. Many races between trains and cars have been filmed, but seldom has the spirit of speed been so well caught as it is in this remarkable picture. Besides the thrillipg passages in the race, there arc many exciting moments in the rest of the film. For once, the heroine is called on to do some real fighting, and the way she gets the best of two toughs absorbs the spectator. Realism was the keynote of the demands made on the company by the director, and realism he has certainly succeeded in getting. From beginning to end the film is absorbingly real, the motor race at the finish coming as a splendid climax. Never for an instant does the attention wander from this story, which has a thrill every minute. Priscilla Dean takes the part of Emily Dale, secretary to Jed Morgan, a Detroit automobile manufacturer. She is

called back from her vacation to help to find the plans of a gearless car which it is Morgan’s dream to make. John Steele, Morgan’s nephew, a mechanical genius who is trying to find the secret of the gearless car, is called in by Morgan to work on the gearless device. Chet Higgins, a cousin, is also called in. The prize for the first of the two to find the secret is a halfshare in the old man’s big business. When Steele and Emily meet, they become very interested in each other. Higgins also loves Emily and makes advances to her in a manner which annoys Steele, -who knocks him down. On account of his health, Morgan goes to California. Steele devotes nearly all his time to the plans of the gearless car, and finally works out the secret. Higgins learns of this and sends a renegade engineer to help him in stealing the plans. While they are copying the plans in the workshop, Emily enters and discovers them, but in the dark fails to recognise either o* them. She fights the two of them and, armed with a solid spanner, drives them out. She knows at once that it is the plans that were the attraction, and not tools, as Steele is apt to think. Both Steele and Higgins finish their cars at the same time. Higgins plots with his confederate to smash up Steele’s car so that it will not go to the exhibition in Los Angeles. Just as Steele is about to drive his car on to the train to take it to California, a big truck, at Higgins’s order, runs into it and smashes it up. Steele is badly hurt. Higgins exultantly drives his stolen model on to the train and sets out for the exhibition. Emily takes charge of the wrecked car and gets it repaired in the quickest possible time, preparing to drive it to the show and beat the train. With the train six hours in the lead, Emily and her chum, Midge Rooney, start on their great race. The trip proves a hazardous and thrilling one over barbarous roads and through great stretches of desert. Despite all obstacles, Emily overtakes the train and arrives in Los Angeles before Higgins. At the station, the rival cars meet, and then follows a race through the crowded city traffic. Higgins is pulled up by a traffic policeman for speeding, and is put in gaol for ten days. _ Emily races to the show, and drives in through a window just as the time limit expires. Old man Morgan is more than pleased, the only regret he lias is that Steele claims as his wife the best of all secretaries. The second attraction is “The Desert Pirate,” a thrilling Western, featuring Harry Carey. Several good comedies and interest ing gazettes complete a first-class programme.