REGENT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 260, 1 November 1929, Page 11

REGENT.

“FOUR FEATHERS.” The English illustrated weeklies are full of “stills” from the “Four Feathers.” The pictures ar e so good. The filming is just us good as the “stills.” Young Faversham, the young sensitive Englishman of a military family, knew well the strength of its tradition. He did not shrink from pain and hardship; that did not worry him. What did worry him, however, was that he was afraid of being short of their tradition, and showing the white feather. Most Englishmen have experienced that feeling, s<- can understand Faversham’s feelings which impel him to send in his commission on the Outbreak of the Sudan campaign. The natural misinterpretation of his conduct kills his father, and breaks his engagement with Ethno, a colonel’s daughter. She sends him a white feather and three young officers do the same. Faversham ha s received Four Feathers. Spurred by this he goes to th e Sudan, joins the Arabs, breaks into the terrible gaol at Khartoum, escapes with French and is received by a patrol in the desert. He engages in another mission, getting into a surrounded fort to bring news of the relief column. He joins in the fighting, which faces the column, and each man in turn asks for his feather back. Ethne, being the last to beg forgiveness. Mr A. E. W. Mason’s novel, upon which this film is based, is a long book. Paramount is to be congratulated on the evenness of the film story. The theme is well preserved throughout. The desert scenes are good, the escape from the slave market being a splendid piece of work, this escapade comprising the photographing of monkeys tyid hippopotomi. Richard Arlen’s rendering of main role of Young Faversham is a splendid piece of acting. He plays into the story, not at the audience. His restrained manner is true to the psychology of the character assigned to him. He does not star, h e simply goes his fearful way, conquering his apprehensions. The supporting characters arc .well sustained, but this film is undoubtedly a Michael Arlen success. Super-Talkie To-morrow. “Madame X,” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s screen version of the popular stuage melodrama, which will open at the Regent to-morrow at the matinee, is the first feature picture to be directed by Lionel Barrymore. ‘‘Madame X” was prepared as a talking film by Willard Mack, New York playwright, who is now under contract to M-G-M. Barrymore, who throughout his career as a character actor, has always had ambitions to do directorial work, was so successful with the short subject, “Confession,” that he was given the direction of “Madame X.’’ He is now making “The Green Ghost,” a mystery story with a war background. Ruth Chatterton, Lewis Stone and Raymond Hackett head the cast of “Madame X.” Miss Chatterton, who has the title role, a part played by Bernhardt and other noted stage actresses, has appeared in a number of dialogue films. Stone’s most recent screen role was in the all-talking “Tria] of Mary Dugan,” an M-G-M. production, as was also Hackett’s last screen appearance. The cast of “Madame X” also includes Holmes Herbert, Eugenie Besscrer, Mitchell Lewis, Ullric Haupt, Richard Carle, Carroll Nye, Sidney Toler, Claud King and Chappell Dosset. A melodrama by Alexandre Bisson, produced in Paris on December 15, 1908, at the Porte Saint Martin Theatre, “Madame X” was adapted to the English stage by John Raphaelson. It achieved as great a success in England and the United States as in France. Its New York stage premiere wa s at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

The story of “Madame X” is that of a young and beautiful French woman who, through her husband’s selfabsorption and neglect, decides to leave him and her small son. Going steadily down the social scale and passing through years of misadventures, she finally becomes the prey of a rogue who attempts to utilise his knowledge of her past for purposes of blackmailing her former husband. Desiring to shield her son, now a young attorney, from the realisation of his father’s obloquy, she is driven to murder the man who threatens to reveal her past. Brought to trial, “Madame X,” as she calls herself, is placed in the extraordinary situation of having her grown-up boy assigned by the state to defend her. So effective is his plea for mercy tfor this unknown woman that he obtains leniency from the court. The emotional strain has been too great, however, and at the close of tho trial “Madame X” falls dead.