UNUSUAL PICTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20455, 7 November 1934, Page 3

UNUSUAL PICTURE.

“ Damaged Lives ” Starts on Saturday. “ David Harum ” (Will Rogers) will be shown finally on Friday night at the Crystal Palace Theatre. More than a decade has passed since the well-known play by Eugene Brieux, “ Damaged Goods,” was performed in New Zealand and circulated widely in printed form. Hence it is not unfitting that the same theme, the havoc wrought by the so-called social diseases, should be again presented to an even larger public through the medium of talking pictures. This has been done in an American dramatic fittn, “ Damaged Lives,” which comes to the Crystal Palace Theatre on Saturday. Included in this programme will be an instructional picture giving specific information, and more of the same is obtainable from booklets prepared by the Racial Hygiene Association of New South Wales, which will be offered for sale in the theatre lobby. Needless to say, the programme is not for children, and by the censor’s order admission is barred to persons under sixteen. The two films, in their different ways, handle a most unpleasant subject with sincerity and frankness, even to the point of giving the unlooker occasional quite salutary shocks. The storv unfolded in “ Damaged Lives ” is a simple one of the present-day American life. A shipowner’s young son, about to be married, makes a false step under the influence of bright lights, jazz and liquor. When he and his wife are expecting a child, the family physician makes a discovery and the terrible truth is revealed to them. Good fortune saves the distracted wife from taking both their lives, and the play ends on a note of hope. The stor / finds room for a testimony against quackery in this branch of medicine and illustrates the good work done bv special clinics in American cities. Box plans at the D.I.C.