STRAND THEATRE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19174, 3 December 1927, Page 7

STRAND THEATRE.

CO-STAR PROGRAMME. ANITA STEWART AND HOOT GIBSON. "A Hero on Horseback," starring Hoot Gib Son, and "Never tho'Twain Shall Meet," starring Anita Stewart, are the two big pictures showing at the Strand Theatre this week. Hoot Gibson appears as Billy Garford, a care-free cowboy, who, after a disastrous adventure at the gambling table, in which he loses everything, accepts the offer of J. B. Starbuck, a neighbouring rancher, who advances him a sum of money with' Billy's ranch as security. This, too, he fritters away except a small sum. He takes work from his master rancher, but is soon dismissed for being too attentive to Starbuck's daughter. But fortune smiles on him. An old prospector, to whom he has shown kindness, strikes a bonanja, and sends Billie half his big winnings per medium of a crooked cashier. The action moves fast when Billie buys the bank, pursues the cashier, who is also a rival for the hand of tho rancher's daughter, and brings glory and honour to himself through a maze of thrilling exploits. . The locale of "Never the Twain Shall Meet" is the over-beautiful tropical Tahiti, with' its romantic inhabitants. It tells of one Tamea, a half-caste princess, and Dan Pritchard, the silent man of the West, who fell to her allurement, and married her, to regret it. It is the story of the clash of colours, and the unsympathetic union of blood. The languidness of the tropical climate stagnates the man's body, and his erstwhile romance becomes a tragedy. Timely contact with the Old World and his fellowmen acts as a tonic, and brings him back to a sane realisation. Bert Lytell as Pritchard paints a picture of degradation that is only too realistic. Anita Stewart is the half-savage, half-civilised island princess, magnetic and dashing, with all the primal urgo of the tropical native.