AMUSEMENTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 July 1926, Page 1

AMUSEMENTS.

EVERYBOOYS PICTURES.

“THUNDER MOUNT AIN”—WEDNESDAY. There are many drawbacks to playing the part of a little circus girl who lias cast her lot with the superstitious and primitive people of the mountains, who believe the one way to inipress a. thing on the mind of a child is to “drive the thought in” with the first did) or strap that comes handy. At least, Madge Bellamy, the dainty little star who plays the part of Azalea in “Thunder Mountain,” the William Fox production which opens on Wednesday at the Princess Theatre, has found it so, even though she assured Emily Fitzrov, who is the religious though neuralgic “Ma” Mac Birney of the picture, that the whipping wasn’t hurting when Emily had to use the old rawhide strap on her in one of the most dramatic scenes. Madge, at this juncture of the play, has decided .that, so long as Sam Martin is resolved to clean up Thunder Mountain, she may as well help him. Her first move in the cleaning-up crusade is a purely physical one, for she collects the youngsters in. the. neighbourhood and is in the act of bathing them in wholesale lots when their mothers discover her. A bath in the Blue Ridge mountains is not an incident, by any means. It is an event to be planned and discussed long before the victim is actually immersed in the steaming water and sent to laid to prevent pneumonia. So. the women of the mountain unrighteously indignant when they find their offspring, in various stages of dishabille being bathed by a girl who lias shocked the community by her actions and views of life—and who has only recently been a member of a circus. Mil Maeßirney, to whom Azalea has been entrusted by Sam Martin, knows of only one way.to cope with the situation, so Azalea comes in for a severe lashing. A topical and comedy complete sthc programme.