“AFRICA SPEAKS" OPENS AT THE THEATRE ROYAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 15

“AFRICA SPEAKS" OPENS AT THE THEATRE ROYAL.

“Africa Speaks” differs from all other films of the kind in that it is not only «. dynamically stirring jungle adventure -—but an emotional romance of the lives, loves and hates—jealousies and triumphs of the people of the trackless forests. Exploit after exploit reaches the high-water mark of thrilling dramatic conflict—between man and man—man and beast—man and woman in a simple primitive land where might is the rulfe of life, where force takes by brute strength its food and pleasure. From Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Lagos on the Atlantic the path cf the story stretches—across the black throbbing heart of the untouched Congo. Weird customs, wild dances—flame in the background, accenting the panorama of cruelty, sensuality and amazing feats of heroism. Through torrents, marshes and almost impregnable tropic fastnesses to Kiya Be, whose women wear huge wooden discs ins? rted in thfeir lower lip which gives them the appearance of grotesque ducks. Blit they were beautiful once these women! And to the African eye still would be if they weren’t disfigured. The Arabs caused that, sweeping out of the desert in search of comely black girls. And they found them in Kiya Be. The grefedy marauders came back again and again and their repeated raids depleted the tribe—unt<; the women were forced to distort themselves to avoid being enslaved by the Bedouin chiefs. The pygmies! The little chattering people whose voices also have been caught by the camera’s ear. The deadly female sharpshooters of the Jungle, the mortal poisons, secrets lost for ages, whose touch means Instant death; the hand-to-hand struggle -with giant lions, the beating of arums heard and relayed for thousands of miles, thfe women of Nairobi dancing to a phonograph record with perfect jazz steps, the swarm of locusts that cover the sky as far as the eye can see, blotting out the sun, forming a canopy of Insects over the earth! Sensation piled on sensation, hundreds of inconceivably queer moments framing an emotional drama of startling intimacy and revealing action, the death-laden, heartbreaking, breath-taking romance of the Congo’s elemfental men and women. The box plans are at the Theatre Royal today.