LYRIC PICTURES

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 14 February 1918, Page 3

LYRIC PICTURES

—Friday Evening—

" The Stronger Love " —The blood fued is the theme of this fine Morosco play.,, Thunder Mountain where live the Rutherfords and the Servisses is the scene of the drama, and it is wildly picturesque, the photography being splendid. Viyian Martin is dainty and demure as the heroine, and her wondrous mop of curls is much in evidence. Jack Livingstone is a manly and handsome hero, and the plot is really original. There are quaint touches of humour in the portions of the play dealing with the smugglers and the " revenooers," and the dance in the schoolhouse is very homely and realistic. , The big Keystone comedy " His Busted Trust," is featured amongst the supports. —Saturday Evening— " The Man Without a Soul " —ln a working class parish a vigorous agnostic propaganda has had its effect on the factory people. Young Stephen Ferrier, the son of the saintly vicar of the parish, is about to take holy orders and longs to begin the fight against unbelief. Stephen protects a ragged girl, Lucy, and at last, seeing no other way of saving her, he quixotically marries her. Haiden realises that he has lost his influence over the men, and determines to recover, it by bringing Professor Gedge. The Professor finds himself faced by a hostile crowd. He is saved from the mob by Stephen and his father. Stephen is hurt by a stone flung at Gedge, and is taken to the Professor's house. Gedge (a brilliant scientist) is at work on an experiment which is to create life. He has almost converted Stephen to his views when an accident in the laboratory results in a violent electric shock to both men. As Gedge comes back to himself he hears the doctor pronounce life to be extinct in Stephen. After the boy's father has gone, Gedge says: " That sentimentalist's God won't give him back his son. I will." And by his science he shocks the lifeless clay into speech and movement. It is not Stephen, however, who rises at last from the operating table, •jbut a thing in his likeness only—a man without a soul. And this creature wrecks the Ferrier's home and leaves terror aud death in its wake until the appalled scientist himself prays to the God he has denied to undo his work. And with that prayer both Gedge and Stephen wake to a new life in which doubt has no part. —Tuesday Evening— " The Making Over of Geoff. Manning" —Labour and its troubles form the leading themes in this production. Geoff Manning, the son of a wealthy ironfounder, is accustomed to talk of the working man as a loafer and a person prone to causeless riots, etc. Stung to the quick by a taunting comment on his uselessness, overheard at the Club, he leaves his society butterfly sweetheart and battles into the world to make a living. He finds it no bed of roses, but for very shame's sake sticks it out and makes good. Belle Bruce, as the little music student living in the same set of cheap apartments as Geoff, acts with great sweetness and naturalness, and the old father, hard and unbending as the iron of his fpundry, is a fine piece of characterisation. There is a fine thread of grim humour throughout the story, and the whole play is fresh and interesting. Tbe latest Mutual-Chaplin comedy hit, " The pount," will also be screened.