“LOOKING FORWARD.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20238, 23 February 1934, Page 3

“LOOKING FORWARD.”

Crystal • Palace to Show Timely Drama. “ Orders is Orders ” will be shown finally to-night at the Crystal Palace Theatre. “ Looking Forward,” which will start at the Crystal Palace Theatre to-mor-row, is a human story, a deep human story fitting the day and the hour; and it is brilliantly acted. “ Looking Forward ” is really something right out of the ordinary in cinema entertainment, and no one can * see this simple, yet direct, story, without fully realising its true value. The starring honours are equally shared by Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone. Benita Hume, Elizabeth Allan and Phillips Holmes. The depression through which the world has been passing is poor material for a playwright, but in “ Looking Forward ” a brilliant constructive use has been made of bad times, and people should see this picture for its tonic effect on them as well as for its artistic excellence. In the distinguished group of stars and supports Lewis Stone and Lionel Barrjmore are outstanding, Stone playing the principal proprietor of a large London store threatened with depression-bankruptcy, and Barrymore playing a veteran employee dismissed from the store after forty years’ service. The veteran employee and his wife and family meet fate fighting, and start a profitable cake shop; their example helps the store proprietor to regain his own courage for a further effort, whereupon his rich, spoiled children undergo a moral revival and come to his help. Thus two families, in two different social spheres, are born again in depression, fight and conquer. Elizabeth Allan is the store proprietor’s loyal daughter, Benita Hume is his disloyal wife, and Colin Clive and Phil- . P® Holmes present something of what is best in the younger manhood. Box plans at The Bristol.