STATE THEATRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 132, 21 June 1937, Page 11

STATE THEATRE

"THE PLAINSMAN ' ' — EPIC OF AMERICA. "The ^lainsman," which gcrCens at the Stafe Theatre to-nigh't, has been peopled with a cast worthy of its eharacter. Gary Cooper is "Wild Bill" Hicock, James Ellison is ".Buffalo Bill," Jean Arthur is the Westtoughened "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 inaster, 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 individuhl sense as to beeome itsolf 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 justiee to a genuinely great uchieveinent. 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 glorious part — of the cavalcade of American history, a glowing pageant of the resolve, the high courage and the sheer force of will which, at the end of the Ameriean Civil War thrust the frontier of United States settlement farther and farther outward to that new land of tlie Westwhich beclconed in constant call to the ambitious and the adventurous. •