AMUSEMENTS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 October 1917, Page 1

AMUSEMENTS

JOHN FULLER & SONS.

SENSATIONAL FILM PLAY

Fourteen months work and the expenditure of over £50,000 wenfcto the making of “ Cabiria ” the big film play which is to be screened at the Princess Theatre on Monday evening. It was made in Italy. That is to say that the Itala Film Co of Turin undertook the task. The scenes however, are laid in the Alps, in Sicily, in Italy and in Africa, and the whole company of picture artists numbering 700, and the stall: required to set and take the pictures, had to be transported to these various places to secure the necessary realism. Actors were injured in the course of the preparation because some of the battle scenes required most strenuous acrobatic teats, but the picture dispite disappointing delays ami apparently insuperable difficulties was at length completed to the satisfaction of the Company's producers and the author of the scenario, Gabriele’s d’Annunzio the great Italian, playwright. Its 12,000 feet are crowded with thrillino, scenes, and in London, Rome. New York, and Paris, it lias proved the sensation of the year.

Apart from the plot and the live interest of the [day both of which are ingenious and absorbing the picture is remarkable because its scenes are drawn from the Punic wars the long and fearful contests between ancient Rome and ancient Carthage, for the dominion of the world. These wars took place in the third century before Christ, and that, is tlm epoch in which “ Cabiria ” is laid. No more fitting time could’ have been chosen for the production of the film than the present. The world is distraught with the horrors of the present war, and historians tell s us that this present war against, Germany exceeds in magnitude tnly the Pnnic wars of 218 B.C. That was a war of extermination - a war for every existence as this one is. The prices will be as usual.