VARIED PROGRAMME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20454, 6 November 1934, Page 3

VARIED PROGRAMME.

“ The Scarlet Empress ” and Senia CSiostiakoff.

“The Scarlet Empress,” the magnificent Paramount film, portraying the rise to power of Catherine the Great of Russia, which heads this week's bill of fare at the Regent Theatre, is a notable triumph fior its producer, Josef von Sternberg, who has shown his abounding genius by presenting a barbaric pageant of Russian life under the mad rulers of that unhappy country. The cast fs one of exceptional brilliance. Marlene Dietrich, who portrays with acfcmirable restraint the title role and earns, new laurels, has to share the honours with Louise Dresser, John Lodge and Sam Jaffe, the study by the last-named of the mad Grand Duke being a memorable characterisation. The film is presented with remarkable historical veracity and gives a picture of a pagan Russia, in which corruption. intrigue and vice are carried on under the shadow of fantastic and superstitious images in a palace of gloom housing members of a mad dynasty, while outside the people are; suffering under the greatest oppression, and unspeakable tortures are inflicted on the victims of the dreaded Cossacks. A special additional attraction is the appearance on the-stage of the well-known Russian singer. M. *■®ni_R Chostiakoff, and his Cossack Choir in costume.