“THE WORKING MAN.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 903, 26 October 1933, Page 3

“THE WORKING MAN.”

Plaza Offers George Arliss Picture. The Arliss who has become a byword in the motion picture world as a brilliant character actor, loses none of his popularity with the passing: of time. In ” The Working Man,” which heads the attractive programme at the Plaza Theatre, George Arliss again achieves the excellence of performance which won him such renown in “ Disraeli ” and “ The Man Who Played God.” As a type, however, the character he plays in the present picture is radically different from the others mentioned. Yet it has a purpose: one of those Arliss purposes in life which are always associated with his productfons. It is not too much to say that to take part in a film which had no purpose to fulfil, or object lesson to give, would be foreign to the Arliss convention. In “ The Working Man ” he succeeds .once more in driving a moral home. On this occasion he is a shoe manufacturer (Reeves) on the large scale, practically dictating footwear to America, and with but one real competitor—an old friend of his. Business is not flourishing as well as it might. Then suddenly the opponent (Hartland) dies and things are looking up for the Reeves’s side. Reeves, however, has a nephew, Benjamin, imbued with all the best in the Yankee conception of business psychology. Benjamin is running Reeves’s firm so well that the uncle decides to go fishing—and then the trouble starts. ‘‘The Working Man” must be seen, for it is the great character actor’s finest screen play.