MAORILAND PICTURES.

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 18 October 1920, Page 3

MAORILAND PICTURES.

“SALOME.” Tliis fine star will shortly bo available for Otaki, and as it is a film of outstanding merit all should make -J j point oi' seeing it. I The picture was six mouths in the making at the Fox studios in Southern California, and involved the expenditure of a vast sum of money —so vast, it is said, that a press agent’s exaggeration of the figure would seem . redundant. Scenes of Old Jerusalem, of a period antedating the Christian era, are said to be reproduced with fidelity, rare Biblical prints and the chronicles of Flavius Jcspehus, original historian of that age, serving to guide aright the producers. Scenicallv, two “sets” will arouse especial admiration. One is an exact reproduction of the Gate of Jaffa, through which, incidentally, General Allenby aucl the British forces recently marched into Jerusalem. The other is ! a reproduction of Salome’s boudoir, modelled after an old print. A fountain banked with wonderful lilies, ferns and exotic plants is in the centre. Grander in vista than these, of course, is'the Jerusalem of forty years before Christ, reproduced in detail after painstaking research. Nothing has been overlooked by the technical staff which would contribute to the versimilitude of the picture. Two score camels, twenty-five hundred horses, donkeys, elephants, goats, sheep, lambs, bullocks and oxen, dogs, cats, parrots, cockatoos, doves, pigeons and peacocks there are, wherever they add realism to the scene. Nature aided Director Edwards in his expert striving for an effect in ‘ mise eu scene. Barely had the paint- [ ters and labourers completed a street scene in old Jerusalem when a down pour of rain lasting several days occurred. It served to give the tumbledown and weather-worn thoroughfare exactly the appearance desired. “A SQUARE DEAL.” As a clever satire on society cult:;, . “A Square Deal.” as produced by the Mutual Studios with Margarita Fisher in the principal role, is a clever and entertaining study, Alice Gilson is the spoilt child of plain, practical practical parents, who. much to their j horror, joins a faddist cult calling itself the “Individualists,” and spells her name “Alys. ” Then two suitors claim her heart —an individual named Le Moyne, and a good healthy-minded young sport named Bruce, whom she marries, luckily. But a condition of _ the union is that whoever tires of the marriage first must tell the other, so that each may go his or her own way. Alice then makes Iter new home a meeting place for the cult, and the husband, sick of the silly business, tells her lie is going to live with “another.” Alice braces up and lets him go, nnrl Le Moyne, the rejected suitor, makes advances. The heartcall is too strong for Alice, and she is only too glad to forgive hubby the I trick lie played on her to clean out the “isms.” for the women he went to live with was —but hadn’t you bettor . see for yourself? Are you a “serious thinker”? Are you devoted to the cult of an “ism”? Well, whether you are or not, you had better see “A Square Deal,” a clever film satire on ■ social fads, produced by the Mutual Company with Margarita Fisher in the role of Alice Gilson, a convert to a new cult. Her particular fad is individualism, which presumably means ' everyone for himself with Mephistopheles welcome to the hindmost. At nnv rate the cult of the individualist receives some hard knocks hi “A j Square Deal,” and when you see the : play you will agree thai for every “isrn” there is a healthy antidote. t