QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT

Evening Star, Issue 22144, 26 September 1935, Page 8

QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT

ST. JAMES TO SCREEN 1 SEQUOIA ’ A picture may well be remarkable yet fail to provide good entertainment. ‘ Sequoia,’ which opens at the St. Janies to-morrow, is not only a remarkable and unusual film, but it also provides entertainment of a rare character. It is regrettable that more films of this type are not made. The theme-of the picture, though gripping and dramatic, is simple in the extreme, and it enchants rather through superb photography and flawless direction than by any continuous story. The picture centres around the extraordinary friendship between a deer and a mountain lion, who are brought up together' from babyhood amid the impregnable forests of the giant Sierras. Jean Parker, who makes a delightful heroine, finds, at the opening of the film, a young deer and a puma cub whose mothers have fallen victims to the firce wars of the forest. Taking them Vhome, she rears them together until the time comes for them to answer the inevitable call of the wild. However, the animal friendship formed through human agency does not perish, but lives on. In the endless struggle to avoid falling victims to the hunter’s gun, this strange devotion endures, and one of' the most magnificent “ shots ” in the entire film occurs towards the end when the deer, pursued by her deadly enemy, man, is saved from death by her puma friend. The puma leaps from behind upon the hunter and a fierce struggle ensues between them on the edge of a precipice, a struggle which ends with the death of the hunter, who is hurled from dizzy heights into a foaming torrent hundreds of feet below. This is an excellent and thrilling piece of photogx-apliy. The picture is also remarkable for some gripping “ close-ups ” of wild life in the forests, breath-taking mountain scenery, and the stark drama of forest fire. The appealing love story of Jean Parker and Russell Hardie, a forest ranger, who find romance amid the giants of the forest, adds further charm to what is already delightful entertainment. On the same programme will be a boisterous Laurel and Hardy comedy, ‘ Oliver the Eighth,’ in which these two comedians rise even above their usual excellence.