DELIGHTFUL TALE

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

DELIGHTFUL TALE

“ Anne of Green Gables ” for Mayfair. The Mayfair Theatre has a programme that cannot fail to hundreds this week. Headed by a Cicely Courtneidge picture, “ Things Are Looking Up,” the bill includes pictures of the Southern Cross on its departure and return from the unfortunate attempt to carry the Jubilee mail across the Tasman. A simple, wholly delightful tale of childhood and early youth is unfolded in “ Anne of Green Gables,” which comes to the Mayfair Theatre on Friday. It is said that the picture has captured the exquisite charm of L. M. Montgomery’s novel and that the characterisations are all good. Anne Shirlev, Gilbert Blythe, Matthew and Marilia Cuthbert and the other central figures of the novel are depicted faithfully, And the film introduces as the principal player the appealing 16-year-old Anne Shirley, who has taken the name of the character she portrays. It would certainly have been hard to find a better to take the part of the orphan heroine whom Mark Twain once described as “ the dearest and most moving and delightful child of fiction since the immortal Alice.” Tom Brown is happily cast as Gilbert Blythe, the boy whose schoolday infatuation for Anne grew into a more mature love. O. P. Heggie as'Matthew and Helen Westley as Manila, the lonely middle-aged folk who adopted Anne, again prove their worth, for their characterisations are one of the features of the picture. Other fine performances are contributed by Sara Haden, Gertrude Messenger, Charley Grapewin and Murray Kinnell. “ Anne of Green Gables ” tells the story of an orphan girl who is sent to a farm home in place of the boy who had been expected. Whimsical. imaginative and fiery tempered withal, she wins the hearts of the old bachelor and spinster who take her in. Her conquest of Matthew is easy; that of the sister, the bitter Manila, not so easy. The romance between Anne and Gilbert is launched in a schoolroom quarrel, and its development demonstrates that true love never did have a smooth course, even in charming Prince Edward Island, the rural background of the story. An old family quarrel, which has lasted through the years, threatens their happiness, but, as is fitting, everything ends happily. The costumes and settings add much to the atmospheric appeal of the production. Box plans at the D.I.C.