"Forever Amber" Is Lavish Spectacle In Technicolour

Chronicle (Levin), 21 October 1948, Page 10

"Forever Amber" Is Lavish Spectacle In Technicolour

LES..M.

MURPHY)

(SPECIAL— FROM

WELLINGTON, October 14. Theatregoers looking forward to something above the ordinary run of screen fare will not be disappointed with the film "For ever Amber." At a special private preview of the film in Wellington recently all present confirmed the opinion that it was a pieture of outstanding quality — a lavish spectacle in technicolour. Having read the book and attended the film's preview I can confidently say it is one of the most outstanding productions screened in New Zealand for some time. It is due to open in Wellington shortly.

The producers, 20t'h Century' Fox, have treated Kathleen Winsor's novel with ample justice in 12,000 feet of magniflcent technicoloi\ No pains or expense have been spared to give the film an authentic background of 17th century England. Highlights in a feast of colourful scenes of contemporary life are those showing the court of King Charles II, with its gay-plumaged cavaliers and beautiful women, grimly reafistic glimpses of London in the g'rip of the Black Plague, and of the ensuing great fire whic'h swept the metrcpolis. As far as the story goes the film holds fairly closely to the original and those who have read the book are not likely to find any significant disparity, but, of course, the purple passages whic'h helped to sell the book have been refined. Amber, it is true, has her affairs, but these amorous sequences have been so treated as to give no offence on moral grounds. Such cutting of the original has been necessary has not affected the continuity of the film, which holds the interest throughout the 2-^- hours it takes to screen. Principal players are Linda Darnell, Cornel Wilde, George San'ders and Ric'hard ''Greene.