GREATER CRYSTAL PALACE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18481, 8 September 1925, Page 13

GREATER CRYSTAL PALACE.

TASSION AND GAIETY. •'ALIMONY'* AND I'A ROARING ADVENTURE." A hippy blending of passion and mirth, adventure and romance should attract many pen?lc to the Greater Crystal Palace Thcatro this week. Two big pictures, "Alimony" and "A Roaring Adventure. - ' arc featured, and the Symphony Orchestra plays an excellent programme. "Alimony" IB the latest of the many "scathing rebukes to a jazjf-crazed world." The directors have spared no expense to show that thero really is something to rebuke, and than they have put forward a "solution" on an equally lavish aea>. !t is a. domestic dranja by A. T. Locke, and the cast inchildes prominent players like Grace Darroond, Warner Baiter, Ruby Miller, Wm. A. Carroll, Jackie Saunders, Clyde Fillmore, Mcrshal Mayall, and Alton Brown. Jazz-parties arc featured in "Alimony." There are "pelting" parties in the purp!e dawn, moonlight bathing in secluded nooks, midnight roveN on cruising yachts, and all manner and degrees of gaietv. The story is unusual and attractive. Jimmie Mason, a young inventor, is madly in love with his young bride, Marion, but they are living in poor circumstancts. Mason twists his ankle, and Marion, with womanly courage, hawks an invention round, and finally succeeds in selling it. The picture shows their rise from poverty to till, through the mach-'nations of Jimmie's employer, who covets Marion, and Gloria Dubois, who is smitten with Jimm'e, the two young people are separated. Marion remains true to Jimmie, knowing him to be the victim 'of deceotion, but for a secret purpose she acks a hupe alimony. Everyone turns against her when her mercenarv demands are made known, and Mason himself cainot understand an action which is so unlike Marion. Fighting the world and even hei- own husband for his own s?oo:i, Mt-'oi finally turr.3 defeat into victor}', and utilises the which she lias forced from her husband to brbig about a reconciliation. One of the most interesting reoplo in the picture is Gloria Dubois, the "vamp." Thin role is teken bv Buby Miller, an Englinh actress with a European renutation «s a Shakesnearean artist, in Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's comoany. London critic* have hailed her as England's Bernhardt, and she has gone a long way to ertabli*h a similar reputation in th«s United States. It is worth mentioning that Alton Brown is so like Richard Barthelmess that he has doubled forjiim in several oictures. A sensational Wentern story like "A Roaring Adventure" is ri"ht in Jack Hoxie's line. He was born at Oklahoma ranch, and he. has spent most of his life on horseback. He has won numerous championships in and annual rotinoVnpa. and since becoming a Universal star, he has made some of the moat tfuece«sful Western productions on the screen, including "Ridgway of Montana," "Daring Chanoe," and "Fie-hting Fury." In "A Roaring Adventure' 'he appears an Duffy Burns, an Eastern college man, who has ""gone "West" to renew his acquaintance with cattle and cowboys. He steps into a hotbed of cattle-rustling, and after surprising adventures, comes out unscathed to marry Gloria Carpenter. Hoxie is supported by Mary McAllister, Marin Suia, J. Gordon Russell, Jack Pratt, and Francis Ford.

The, Symphony Orchestra plays delightfully. The piece de resistance is Beethoven's 6th (Pastorale) Symphony, which was writtern in tho woods of Vienna. The opening is played delicately by the strir.ffs, and the whple orchestra comes in with splendid effect. T/he overture is "Shamrock" (Mvddleton), which includes the violin solo, "'Savouroen "Deelish" and the me 7 ody Tara's Halls." Wagner's _ "Lea Filles-Fleurs," from "Parsifal," begins with sombre melody and ends with an allegref to movement. There is also the inspired "Slavonic Dance" by Dvorak. The wood-winds deserve especial praise for their part in "Impressions d'italie" (Charpentier). Tho entr'acte is a now and' lively fox-trot, "Water Melon" (Rose).