CRYSTAL PALACE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20106, 9 December 1930, Page 5

CRYSTAL PALACE.

CHEVALIER IN "THE BIG POND." More disastrous than ever to the feminine heart is Maurice Chevalier in his latest talk tng picture, "The Big Pond," at the Crystal Palace. Hie smile, quaint modes of exyu'ession, and utter disregard for all the conventions score him another hig hit. The "big pond'' i.s, of course, the Atlantic Ocean, in airy American parlance. An American taniiiy, headed by a chewing-gum magnate, visits Venice, where the pretty daughter falls in love with her courier, Chevalier. Tho family is disgusted, and more so, naturally, is the American suitor. The father resorts to finesse, lie invites the courier to take Bt post in his huge factory. ChevAicr, whose picture name is Pierre Miranda, accepts with delight, believing that the offer is a genuine one. To his amazement, he is put to work among tho actual makers of the sticky sweet, and after a couple of days in tho midst of it realises that he is doing real work. He is told that it required an income of 20,000 dollars to get married in America, and schemes mightily to secure it. Jjuck comes his way. A secret bottle of liquor is capsized over a box of gum. He tastes it—the gum—and discovers that the people of America may be given a beverage and a chewing-gum combined. The magnate renlises that there is something in the idea, and soon Chevalier is instjillnd in a high executive position, and soon attains bis object. Seeing that he has turned into a typical American business man, with so many pencils in his pockets that he "looks like a pipeorgan,'' tho lady repulses him, and it is only by a cleverly-staged abduction that ho achieves his crowning success.