SUCCESSFUL PICTURE

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 934, 2 December 1933, Page 19

SUCCESSFUL PICTURE

“ Masquerader ” in Fourth Week of Season. The thrills and heart throbs of one of the world’o most popular stage plays are to be found at the Plaza Theatre in Ronald Colman’s performance of the famous dual roles in ** The Masquerader.” which, with Its excellent supporting- programme, entered the fourth week of its season at that theatre to-day. The strange story of John Chilcote, is told in “ The Masquerader.” Ronald Colman has never been seen to better advantage than in this great dramatic success, in which he portrays two characters. Since both are exactly similar in appearance, the two character parts are played without make-up, and the differences in temperament and personality have to be revealed without any artificial aids. What a great actor Ronald Colman really is ** The Masquerader ” proves in convincing fashion. The irritability of the drug-sodden M.P. gives place in a moment to the goodhumour of John Loder, double of the politician and struggling journalist, as the scenes change in rapid succession, till at last, by a miracle of double exposure and sound synchronisation, Ronald Colman looks at himself, and talks to himself, in a London fog. Those who read the book and saw the play will revel in the screen presentation, which, modernised and refurbished, is incomparably the best entertaining medium of the three. Beautiful Elissa Land! plays the wife of the drug addict, and much of the charm of the picture is due to her prominence in a well-chosen cast.