ROMANTIC THEME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 25 (Supplement)

ROMANTIC THEME.

The Most Popular in Films, says Actress. (By JANET OAYNOR.) Of all motion picture themes—success, mystery, romance, adventure, comedy and the rest —there is one that will alAvays prove the most popular. Romance, de-spite the chortles of the intelligentsia, has succeeded in winning all honours as the favourite emotion of screen fans. Perhaps a cynic would account for this on the grounds that we like what is most unattainable, and that for every ten who achieve success or adventure, only one finds romance. There is more to this viewpoint than is at first apparent. Romance is undoubtedly the rarest thing in life. Most of us find some degree of success, many have an existence in which adventure and action play no small part, but few really encounter romance other than the juvenile “ crushes ” of our school days. Consequently, although only a handful of us reach it, all of us dream of this emotional goal, and a romantic motion picture crystallises the dream into something more tangible. A truck driver and a stenographe'r and a farm worker will be intrigued by a film mystery, amused by a comedy, enjoy a western or an adventure picture—but a romantic production does more than this—it lifts them out of their every-day rut, if but for an hour; it lets them respond to the vicarious thrill of a romance that, for the moment, they themselves are living. Here, then, is the secret of the romantic picture’s triumph over its companions; it satisfies the hidden longings of its audiences to a greater degree than any other type of film. To take an example from my own career, consider “ Seventh Heaven.” While Director Frank Borzage’s war scenes in that picture were equalled at that time only by those in “ What Price Glory ” and “ The Big Parade,” very few, as I have discovered, remember them. The romance between Charles Farrell and myself comprises their principal recollection of the production—and this also seems to be the case with most of our subsequent offerings. In our latest appearance together, in the Fox picture “ Merely Mary Ann,” the romance between Mr Farrell as an eccentric composer and myself as a servant girl in the boarding-house where he lives, constitutes the motif of the story. Against a background of the dingy London establishment, and then of the Devonshire cottage, this romance carries the tale along, but with its rather unusual characterisations will be found, I think, somewhat different from any of our earlier pictures together. Different, but no less romantic.

“ Merely Mary Ann ” will open a season at the Regent Theatre on Christmas night. _____________________