AMUSEMENTS AND MEETINGS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20127, 21 April 1928, Page 11

AMUSEMENTS AND MEETINGS.

NEW GRAND THEATRE. Commencing to-day at the matinees at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. and again to-night at 8 p.m. The management will present for a live days’ season one of the most fascinating, thrilling and intereting picture it has been our pleasure to see in many a day. ‘‘The Cat and the Canary” adds another success to the list of Universal Special Productions, produced in the past year. The story was taken from the famous stage success of the same name, by John Willard. It concerns the adventures of a group of six people who are gathered together in an abandoned country mansion, at the hour of midnight. They had been brought there by the reading of a will left by a wealthy recluse. The attorney revals that the testament names Annabelle West, played by Laura La Plante, as the chief legatee. Almost immediately after the contents of the will have been disclosed, things begin to happen to those who had gathered in the spookly old mansion, which had been in the sole care of a negro voodoo-worshipping mammy. Paul Lcni, who achieved fame as the accomplished director of “The Three Wax Works,” employed a number of novel situations to heighten the emotional reactions, including many deft camera touches supplied by Flora Finch.

Laura La Plante is admirable as the harassed heroine and her supporting cast does splendid work. The other featured players are Arthur Edmund Carew, Forrest Stanley, Tully Marshall, Martha Mattox, Lucien Littlefield, George Siegmann, Flora Finch, Gertrude Astor, all of whom interpret their parts with finished dramatic atistry. The box plans for the season are rapidly filling at theatre office and intending patrons are advised to secure seats early as booking is essential to see this picture. Seats booked by telephone must be collected before 5 p.m. each evening to avoid crush at the box office.