ENTERTAINMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1619, 3 October 1916, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS.

“OUR PICTURES.” “A SONG OF A WAGE SLAVE.” The rough and rugged types of workers so vividly painted by the Canadian poet, Robert W. Service, in his tales of the Yukon, are totally different from our own conceptions of the horny-handed sons of toil that they may appear a trille overdrawn and um-eal to us, yet, through the mouths of his uncouth men of the North-west, Service voices with simple grandeur and startling directness the sentiments and aspirations of (he working cla>ses the world over. An attempt to interpret in animated photograph the gripping word-painting of the poet has been made by the Met-

ro Film Company in producing “A • Song of a Wage Slave," a story based on one of Service’s most jjopular poems, which will be shown for the first lime at the Town Hall on Wednesday and Thursday, and it must be confessed that the interpretation is made with uncommon realism. As the title indicates, the industrial problem is the hub of the story, and, though (he lines of the jjoet provide but (he slenderest fabric for a plot, and the widest liberties have been taken in adapting the poem lo the picture screen, the construction is so skilful that throughout the sentiment of the song of the wage slave is its keynote. It is inevitable that for picture purposes there should be liberal development of the deeply human note sounded in the song, where the “lonely and loveless life” yearns for the caress of a woman’s affection, and a love story, which is alien to

the poem itself, becomes the prime

factor in the picture. The “wage 1 slave'' is represented by Ned Lane, who lias the temerity to fall in love with Mildred Hale, the daughter of his master, but the girl's affections are already bestowed upon Frank Dawson, the son of the “Paper King'," who dishonours her, and, owing to the opposition of his plutocratic parent, finds himself forbidden to marry so humbly. Ned makes the nobly-inspired proposal to marry the girl to save her from shame, and subsequently leaves her in order that she may marry Dawson, and finally, when acting as a union leader against Dawson’s Trust, gives his life to save his wife, her child, and lover from a bomb outrage.

The acting of the company, which has produced the story is thoroughly faithful to the types introduced, while the incidents which illustrate the sentiment of the poem are startlingly realistic, and have obviously entailed the most conscientious study and unlimited expense. There is a sensational scene where Dawson, the elder, in his grasping scheming to become master of the harnessed water-power of a stream, is overwhelmed by the accidental opening of the outlet pipe of a dam, which hurls him into the rapids scores of feet below. There is the release by explosion of a mighty assemblage of lumber in a river, and a deeply impressive depiction of the toilers by furnace and at pit face in the bowels of the earth, while the destruction by bomb outrage of one of the mills of the Trust, and the explosion of the infernal machine which Ned carries from the house of young Dawson, are other startling incidents in the. film. Here and there the picture is slight ly overcoloured, but on the whole the farfetched and improbable situations which characterise so much of the work of the American syndicates are surprisingly absent from this film. An additional attraction will be a 2,000 ft. Triangle -Keystone comedy. Mack Sennett, the producer of the Keystone comedies, takes tremendous risks with the safety, and even the lives, of his artists in • order 1 to obtain a sensational and at the same time laughter-raising incident. In “Dizzy Heights and Daring Hearts," which will be screened as an additional item to the foregoing Metro star, extraordinary methods have been adopted. In addition a 2,000 ft. Vitagraph drama, “The Gods Kedeem," featk uring Maurice Coctello; “The Love of a Girl," a Sidney Drew comedy; ' and the latest official war pictures will be shown.