AMUSEMENTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1931, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS.

EVERYBODY® PICTURES. “CAP! 1 AIN OF THE GUARD.” “Captain of Tlie Guard,” the biggest all-sound production attempted in the motion picture industry to be screened to-night (Thursday), is a dramatic musical spectacle of the French Revolution, co-starring John Boles, singing star of “The Deserf Song”, “Rio Rita” and others, arid Laura La Plante.

It brings Charles Wakefield Cadnian America’s foremost composer, to the singing screen for the first time and the Marseillaise itself, the dramatic national hymn of the French nation, is dramatized both in pictures and music to a height of intensity that sweeps every emotion before it. This song is the theme behind the picture and beautiful love story between Boles and Rouget De Lisue and, Miss La Plante as Marie Marnay, who becomes leader of the early revolutionists, known to the whole of France as “The Torch.” I ft is La Marseillaise which carries forward the tremendous drama of the j revolution, pictured in the film by huge battle scenes between the revolu-1 tionary mobs and the King’s trained guards, in which 7,000 players, all in | peasant costumes or brilliant picturesque uniforms, were used at one time.

John S. Robertson, famous motion picture director, has succeeded in picturing not only the immortal march of the Marseilles men and the terrific battles, but the spirit behind them. Many huge sets were used in making the picture, an entire French village, the enormous banquet hall where Rouget joins his regiment, magnificent settings in the King’s palac-e, the garrison and the dungeons below. Every costume, uniform anti prop are exact reproductions, and there , are thousands of them. Besides Boles and Miss La Plante, Lionel Belmore, Stuart Holmrs, Evelyn Hall, Murdock McQuarrie, Claude Fleming, George Haekathorne, Richard Cramer, Harry Burkhardt, De-Witt Jennings, atid many others appear in important roles. “Captain of The Guard” is an original screen story by Houston Branch, a noted playwright. Also Paramount Sound News and Universal Movietone News. Price 3s, 2s plus tax.

HUMPHREY BISHOP

COMEDY COMPANY

This popular Metropolitan Co. will appear in the Princess Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 12, after an absence of nearly 4 yearn. The only Co. on the" road which has travelled the world without a break for more than 10 years, they have recently returned from an extended tour of nine months through New Zealand, and come to you direct from a record-breaking season at the New Cairo Theatre, Melbourne. This Company has played through all the principal metronolitnn theatres in Australia, and it is Mr Bishop’s proud boast that he is the only entrepreneur in Australia who travels with his full metropolitan company through the country towns and presents his entertainment, as far as circumstances permit, in exactly the same manner and with the same elaborate settings and dainty frockings as he employs in the cities. The comedy part will be mainly in the hands of Maurice Barletiy Boss, Arthur Hemsley (a new favourite from Lancashire), and Svd Montvne (well known to Australian audiences), while the more serious side will he suonorjed by Walter Kineslev, the eminent London baritone-. Thelma Trott, the Queensland soprano: and Fred Weblev, the English tenor. Every artist is a star in his or her particular line of entertainment. Ensembles, corns from the operas, comedy sketches and vocalists follow one another in «iieh rapid - succession that thentrei'oers can look forward to an f> ntei*tninment that will leave them without n dull moment.