STATE THEATRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 130, 18 June 1937, Page 11

STATE THEATRE

"THE PLAINSMAN"— EPIO OF AMERICA. "The Plainsman, ' ' which commences at the State Theatre to-morrow has been peopled with a cast worthy of its aharactef. Gary Cooper is ''Wild bHI" Hicock, James Ellison is "Buffalo Bill," Jean Arthur is the Westtouglj^ned "Calamity" Jane, and John Miljan the heroic General Custer. Direction is fundamentally responsible for the high standard reached by "The Plainsman. " The film, obviously, is the work of a master, and perhaps only Cecil B. de Mille could have made it.' Each scene is directed with a clear and complete knowledge of popular demands in screen entertainment; each scene is so deftly handled in the individual sense as to become itself a minor masterpiece, yet blended harmoniously into the greater master piece of the whole production. To call ' ' The Plainsman" an epic is to do no more than jugtice to a genuinely great achievement. It is a colourful slice of history, moulded into a gripping story, dressed and treated with a thorough understanding, and served in a masterpiece of screen production. "The Plainsman" is a record in film of one part — and that a glorlous part' — *f the cavalcade of Aoierican history, a glowing pageant of the resolve, the high coprage and the sheOr force of will which, at the end of the American Civil War tlirust the frontier of United States settlement farther and farther outward to that new land of the WeBt which beckoned in constant call to the ambitious and the adventurous. "We're On The Jury" and "Don't Tell the Wife" screen finally to-night.