“DISRAELI” AT GRAND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 114, 16 May 1931, Page 6 (Supplement)

“DISRAELI” AT GRAND

TRIUMPH FOR ARLISS. ACTING THAT IS PERFECT. I A picture well worth while would be an apt descriptive term to apply to ••Dim cli, j; to start to-day at the Grand Theatre. It is a picture which helps to keep alive British tradition, and builds anew a sense of loyalty to Ibe cause which men fought, planned and died for many, many years ago. Lt was to the broadness of vision of men like Disraeli, so the story runs, to bis inimitable self control, to his iron nerve and its governing influence when the moment demanded immediate action, that England owed ownership nt the Suez Canal, and all that it meant to her Eastern Empire, which, at that time, was India. One hears the Gladstone v. Disraeli light in the. House of 'Commons, senses the undercurrent of dislike of the English aristocracy for “the foreigner” who was trying to sway the country into a wildcat scheme of “ buying a ditch which ran through sand.” One comes to grips with the breach which existed between the Prime Minister and the Bank of England, realises the characteristic pigheadedness of the aristocracy of the dav and feels downcast.

Only the smilingly directed genius of Disraeli, scheming for Britain’s future against Russian intrigue, with the nearsighted policy of Gladstone as a handicap, awakens pride at the thought that men did live who could look beyond the narrow confines of the day and see the dawn of to-morrow and what Jay be von d.

This picture is a triumph for George Arliss, the English actor. In speech, in manner, in the dramatic moments of the story, he .is the perfect Disraeli. He was never better than when matching his wits against the crafty woman spy of Russia. In the tense moments following Hugh Meyer’s dramatic announcement that the Bank of Meyers was bankrupt and that the cheque in payment for the canal was not worth the paper it was written on, he was an actor of superb skill. In his glorious triumph too, when Her Majesty held Court to do honour to her far sighted Prime Minister, Disraeli gave indication of his depth of human feeling. “And Mary won’t be there,” ho kept repeating in the bitter memory of his wife lying next to death’s door and unable to share with him the fruits of their labours together. The person who misses this picture while it is in Wanganui will regret it.