“WHITE PANNERS"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 169, 20 July 1939, Page 5

“WHITE PANNERS"

BEST SELLER AT MAJES’JK , | ; STRIKING ENTERTAINMENT | Carrying as its guarantee of engrossing interest and solid entertainment the tag, ‘‘from the novel by Lloyd ('. Douglas,” White Banners” opens to-morrow at lhe Majestic Theatre, ivith Claude Rains. Fay Bainter, Jackie 1 Cooper and Bonita Granville in > the leading roles. This unusual story by lhe retired minister is the third of his novels to : be made into a motion picture. The : other two were “Magnificent Obsession” and "Green Light,” and they • proved conclusively that the film . public likes the Douglas type of story ? as much as that, great public which . buys his books. In the picture, as in ■ the novel, lhe dominant character is > that of Hannah Parmalee, the toil- > worn peddler who comes into the 1 household of Paul Ward, lhe small- • town school teacher, at. the troublous time and devotes herself unselfishly ; to the service of the Ward family. ' The story of the picture deals mainly t with the period in which Paul Ward j invents an iceless icebox and then : reaches its climax in the discovery by : Hannah that the adopted son of the , town banker is her own child. What ? she does thereafter movingly illus- • trates the author’s contention on behalf of the nobility of the human i spirit. The part of Hannah is played > by Fay Bainter, long famous on the : stage but only recently a recruit Io ' motion pictures. Claude Rains is Paul > Ward, his wife is played by Kay John- ' son, Jackie Cooper is the youth who ■ Hannah learns is her own, and his ; girl friend, the daughter of Paul > Ward, is Bonita Granville. Other important roles are filled by Henry O’Neill, James Stepheson and J. Farrell McDonald. Edmund Goulding directed.