REMARKABLE PICTURE

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20625, 28 May 1935, Page 15

REMARKABLE PICTURE

“ Lives of a Bengal Lancer ” Starts on Friday. Jerome Kern’s fascinating music, the glorious singing of John Boles, and the return of Gloria Swanson to the screen—these are features of the brilliant production, “ Music in the Air,” now showing at the Regent Theatre. Competent critics state that “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” the Paramount production which will be screened at the Regent Theatre on Friday. will probably be classed as the best film of the year. Inspired by Captain Yeats-Brown’s popular autobiography “Bengal Lancer,” but sufficiently adapted to the requirements of the talking screen to afford ideal entertainment, while retaining a certain amount of authenticity, the production provides a graphic picture of military life on the turbulent north-west frontier of India. It is a tribute to the versatility of the Paramount studios that they have produced a convincing film dealing with a particular and traditional aspect of British military life. In situations which are essentially melodramatic* the fault of over-emphasis never occurs, and there is no hiatus in a swiftly-moving plot, which carries audiences on a wave of breathless suspense from the beginning to the end. There is a romance in the soldiering of the North-West frontier which has been captured by several skilled novelists and writers, a romance which is more colourful on the screen, especially when handled with the consummate cleverness revealed in “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer.” It captures the very spirit of the thing, and is a worthy dedication to the handful of British soldiers who police a frontier which is always simmering with unrest and intrigue. The cast has been fortunately chosen. Gary Cooper has probably the finest role of his career as a young Scoteh-Canadian officer, with a forbidding personality, but who at heart is almost a sentimentalist. Throughout the film he interprets his with a nice sense of its requirements. Franchot Tone, as a brother officer. almost “steals” the picture from him by an eminently satisfying performance. His light-hearted humour in the face of dire peril provides a balancing light to the shade of Cooper’s near-melan-choly. Box plans at the D.I.C.