ARCTIC PICTURE IS BIG ATTRACTION AT LIBERTY THEATRE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18643, 24 December 1928, Page 7

ARCTIC PICTURE IS BIG ATTRACTION AT LIBERTY THEATRE.

An unusual programme of pictures has been secured by the management of the Liberty Theatre for the Christmas holiday week. Apart from the double-feature bill being: reverted to for the time, the leading picture is one of those rare delights, a film not made in Hollywood, nor, for the matter of that, in any studio, unless the Arctic Circle be deemed a studio. It is a picture with Nature for its background, with the cruel and merciless Arctic for its sets, sets that are translated into terms of ice-floes, chasms, mountains and the like. The actors are explorers, and any other living thing that might be found up in the icy north, such as polar bears, seals, penguins, whales and the walrus. “Lost in the Arctic” is the title, a picture that has, to quote one American critic, more real drama in it than many pictures that are so advertised on Broadway. Some unthinking people note such a picture as this, observe that it is without drawing sentiment, patou models and the smart humour of the modern world, and dismiss it for a tiresome series of travelogues and scenery. Nothing could be more erroneous. Pictures like “Lost in the Arctic” are like a breath of cool air in an overheated room, or a phrase of pure English in a sentence of slang. It presents nature in her grandest moods; it presents men, explorers, intrepid and selfless, who are a delight to meet on a screen which deals mostly in lounge lizards, and there is as much human interest and as much romance and adventure as the most insatiate could wish for. For adventure is romantic, and nothing could be more heartening or thrilling than these forays into the Polar regions, where all the odds are against man, and such sights are there that are rarely given to human eye to see.

Of course, in a film like this, it is only natural that there are some scenes that stand out pre-eminently. Of these, perhaps the discovery of the remains of the massing Stefansson expedition, which disappeared fourteen years ago, is the most remarkable. The remains of this expedition were found by Sidney Snow, the leader of the party photographed in the picture, on Herald Island. Then there is the capture of a twenty-two hundred pounds polar bear, the pursuit and harpooning of an eighty-ton whale, the stalking of a herd of Walrus, and marvellous discoveries, experiences, hardships cheerfully withstood, that make the picture a gem of dashing adventure. It is a thrilling and absorbing film, and will undoubtedly prove most popular to audiences on the qui vive for something different, and, at the same time, good.

There will also be on the programme a Tom Mix thriller, “A Horseman of the Plains,” one of those pictures wherein the hero is a hero, dispatching villains in the old style, rescuing a maiden in distress, exercising his nimble wits in a manner that is amusing and entertaining, and after a stout time of it, reaping his just rewards, always a lady. Again, the second picture is sound, healthy entertainment, and Tom Mix and his fine .animal, Tony, do everything between them. All that Doris Dawson,' the leading lady, is asked to do is to look sw'eet and helpless, which she does quite nicely, and to agree to everything at the end. Mr Ernest Jamieson is directing the Concert Orchestra in a special Christmas musical programme. Box plans are the Bristol Piano Company, where seats may be reserved.