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King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 603, 17 September 1913, Page 4

ROMAN CATHOLIC SOCIAL. The Catholic Bucial, which was held in the Taupiri Hall on Thursday even: ing last was a great success from every point of view. The proceedings opened with the Grand March, and about sixty-five coupleß graced the floor. Dancing was kept going until 2 o'clock, and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly. The music was supplied by Mr Christian, Mrs Kawi and Miss McGrath in firstclass style. The supper was all that could be desired. Songs were rendered by Messrs O'Connell, Jepßon, Conway, Miss Gavin and MiBB Mollie Sheehan, and added considerably to the evening's amusement. Messrs P. Cotter, T. O'Connell and D. Sheehan beted as M'b.C., and did all they could to make everyone enjoy themßelveß. EMPIRE PICTURES. "Cleopatra," 6000 ft drama.—ln conception and treatment this production is magnificent. It arreßts the attention, then grips, and one iB carried along through a pageant of pomp and circumstance in something of that sub-conscious state that characterises a Bleeplesj dream—right to the end, and then one glows with gratitude to an art that can be so convincingly - illusory and bo potent in eductional resource. Th«J production is baied on Shakespeare'* and Sardou's plays. The acting is of an exemplary standard. Helen Gardner us Cleopa f ra gives us a portrayal of infinite charm. It is a complex character to interpret—a woman and a queen as capricious aB a March wind, awayed one minute with ungovernable temper and the next moved to tenderness and winsome coquettry; a woman who knows, as only a woman can, how to have and how to love. Whether tigerish in her full-blooded ferocity or languid in sensuous satiety, Helen Gardner is masterly. She makes Cleopatra live, to vibrate through the whole gamut of the emotion), many of her incidental touches revealing that geniuß which is too rarely allied with outstanding physical charms as in her caße. Just as Cleopatra is silhouetted againßt all her associates as a woman in a million, so is Mark Antony Bhown as a real leader of mer- | cenaries, with quiet dignity and purposeful insistence, unobtrusive without being deferential, a ruler with due Bense of superiority without the ice of hauteur. The actor cast for this important part not only posseses the martial bearing and aplomb, hut the histrionic gifts to enable him to stand worthily by the Bide of Helen Gardner —which is high praise indeed. Nothing finer could be desired than their treatment of the first episode in their linked lives; Cleopatra proscrastinating in answering the BUmmonß to C:ii\sar'H cam)); their meeting, with ■Mark Antony determined to exact tribute for the defaults of the queen's subjects, and Cleopatra, intent to conquer the Emperor of Rome by the witchcraft of her own fascinating beauty. This episode alone would be calculated to make the film a great hhi'cobp. Yet it is a moot question whether il quiet reaches the heights of sublimity, which distinguish what iniiiiii flO termed the ultiamte scenes, wh"ti Cleopatra is torn by doubtß and u :u. concerning Mark Antony's integni v. I'll in ia tragedy in excelsis, as i'lowerful in its emotional impulse aB die chmax of "King Lear." These u , only two episodes of a film die. iinp:uu<he;i in many or its phases. Be in lieautiiul scenery, with gorgeous continues and handsome and appropriate auxiliarise.