"COVERS AND LUGGERS."

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 22, 27 January 1938, Page 15

"COVERS AND LUGGERS."

Kr ,nee on Thursday Island,

In "Lovers and Luggers," Cmesounds romantic tale of the pearling fleet of Thursday Island, which is to be shown at the St. James Theatre shortly, Australian talking-picture producers have achieved not only a technical and dramatic excellence equalling Hollywood standards but have brought to the screen an entertainingly 6riginal theme. Briefly, the story is that 01 two cultured Englishmen, a painter and a pianist, who, tired of society life, are provoked by a heartless beauty into crossing the world to Thursday Island, there to dive lor pearls for her. Between them they find a matchless pearl, but in the process they acquire something which xs jto them even more valuable —a certain knowledge of their beauty's vanity and worthlessness. In addition the pianist, played by the popular American actor, Lloyd. Hughes, finds for mmself a wife, a part which is taken by Shirley Ann Kichards. The New Zealand actress, Elaine Hamill, is the cause of all the trouble. The picture relies for its undoubted success upon! its absolute lack of artificiality, an effect which is achieved by the simple expedient of filming practically all of i it- outdoors, much of it on Thursday' Island. The seascapes and ttnder-water photography are first class, and the tHrilling: flght to the death between two divers on the sea-floor alone makes the picture worth seeing. All three principals," and, indeed, every member of a moderately-sized cast, do their work smoothly and attractively. Con* tiriuity is good and the film possesses a virtue unknown: in many American pictures, that of probability. ,Yet it is never dull, and, those few people who are still sceptical-about the merit of other than Hollywood pictures should be convinced of their mistake t%