LYRIC PICTURES.

Otaki Mail, 5 February 1923, Page 2

LYRIC PICTURES.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY' NIGHTS. “ORPHANS OF THE STORM.” CAST OF CHARACTERS. Heiuriette Girard Lillian Gish Louise Dorothy Gish Chevalier de Yaudrey Joseph Sehildraut Count de Linieres Frank Losee Countess de Linieres Catherine Emmett Mather Froehard .... Lucille La Verne Jacques Froel ard Sheldon Lewis Marquis de Presle ... Morgan Wallace Pierre Froehard Frank Puglia Picard Creighton Hale Jacques Forget-Not Leslie King Panton Monte Blue Robespierre Sidney Herbert King Louis XVI Leo Koln.iet'i The Doctor Adolphe Lest inn Sister Genevieve Kate Bruce THE SYNOPSIS. Henriette Girard and her foster sister Louise, are orphaned during the Great

Plague and lose the protection of the couple that had adopted them. The same epidemic had blinded Louise, and her sister sets out with her to Paris to find a physician who may restore her sight. Idn route the beauty of Henriette attracts the heartless Marquis de Presle. Repulsed by the .girl, he sets a henchman to abduct her. Alone in Paris at nightfall, the two girls are set upon by a gang of hireling's. Henriette is carried off, and the blind girl left to wander piteously by the treacherous river side. Louise is picked up by a crippled knife grinder. Pierre Froehard, and taken home to his mother. La Froehard, a hag who supports her favourite son. Jacques, in idleness by bogging. instead of succoring Louise, the woman slaves her and capitalises her infirmity by having her sing in tile streets for alms. Henriette in a swoon is brought into the midst of a mud carnival of aris

toe-rats at Bel Air with the sensual Marquis de Presle as host. The innocent girl’s alarm is taunted, until the sympathetic attention of a young nobleman, de Yaudrey, is attracted. A good impulse causes him to rescue her at the point of the .-word, and to place her in lodgings in the house of Dauton, a leader of the people. From that refuge Henriette begins a pathetic search t'other lost sister. In the meantime, de Vaudrey resists the plans of ids unde, de Linieres, to marry him to an heiress. because already he ha- fallen in love with lleinrette. Another person who tails in love with Henriette is Danton, but his is a hopeless love. Henriette has given her heart to de Vaudrev. The Countess de Linieres, wife

of the prefect, visits Henriette at her lodgings to see what sort of a girl the young man has chosen, and is favour-

ably impressed. However, the countC-»s has a heart secret of her own —she is strangely interested in the lost sister Louise the instant she learns froiq Henriette that Louise was a foundling picked up on the step- of Notre Dame. The eounte.-s had been married before, to a commoner, and her proud relatives slew him and took from her their infant and placed it on the streets to -perish. At this dramatic moment a voice of song is heard or. the street, and Louise is discovered. The countess, who now knows it is Let daughter, swoons, and Henriette on the very point of lushing to discover herself to Louise, is t<rre-»-ed by a company of police sent bv the Count. Henriette, ftuutic, is led away to prison, while Louise, with echoes of her sister’s cries in her ears, is dragged away by La Froehard again to the thieves’ collar. Just at this time, the down-trodden popjuiace of France blazes

out into fierce revolution and mows down, the soldiery of the louts. Daiitoa is a leader and so is Uobt-'pieire, of anothei type. Robespierre has beer, made an enemy of Danton by Henrietta unwittingly, - and they are rivals in iniluciiee besides. He nurtures a spite against Henriette. Amid the mad delirium of the Carmagnole danced in the street by the liberated people, Hcnriette walks forth free from prison us the bastille falls to seek hex sister, j Louise is traced to the cellar, but she 1 is not there. In a quarrel over ill-treat-ment, of her, Pierre ha- slain Jacques and fled with her. Wishing to see iienriette, de Vaudrey disguises himself and returns to Pali.-, risking hi- head as an aristocrat. He came before a tribunal presided over by a vindictive agitator. Jacques Forget-Not, who bear, him a grudge; Henriette, a prisoner too. because arrested with him. Jacques condemns both to the guillotine, Robespierre evilly consenting. Louise is in the court-room audience by chance, and I mutual recognition come- too late. Henriette is dragged away. Danton Comoro the- tribunal, learns of the sentence upon Henriette, and by the speech of his earec-r gets n. popular veto of the death sentence. At the head of mounted guards he rides in the most thrilling race of the screen to save Henriette and her lover, and succeeds. In the shadow j of the guillotine the two orphans are : reunited. ,

WEDNESDAY NIGHT. THE BROKEN GATE." The Lyric Picture- anno ::..-.- a- : featured attraction for IV. dto-.-b-t r::-zh T . * * The i: L>- Gat*.-. ' 1 ::-. Barriscale. This is ihe first ap pea ranee of the popular star under tl manage me::' of the Hodktt 3'rc-i., through Seizin'" I tores and i- ,-a;d : <_> r<pr,:=er.; best '• otk of hei eminently : acc®s*fv! career. i:-c- story is adapted by Jr-.;. C'uaiiit.gbam from the novel of ’?.-<• -a'ame by Emerson. Hough, and ere - c.'i old-age problem it: a -‘ r ,g = - c terest-holding manner. M:--- Barr: v is seen in a role diS’erenriating - . J :y from others that she has formerly c-s----saved. As ‘‘ Aurora Lane, the best* known woman in Spring I alley, and the -■'.man with -he reparation, ,J 'll;-Barri-esie rises to heights of feeling that will establish he- .-rill finnlv

as one of the foremost emotional actresses of the silver sheet. A splendid supporting programme includes “The Blue

Fox” serial chapter six. a Ilallroom eomedv, “This is the Life,” and the Selznick News. “ORPHANS OF THE STORM.” NEXT THURSDAY AND FRIDAY. D. M. Griffith, creator of ‘•lntolerance. ‘‘Wav Down East,” and “Henris of the World.” now offers the public of Otaki the crowning achievement of his remarkable genius. It is “Orphans of the Storm.” with Lillian and Dorothy Gish appearing together for the first time since “Intolerance.” Tile stunts adapted from “The Two Orphans.”

the famous stage success. Lillian ami Dorothy Gish are seen a- the little or-

phan girls suffering in the horrors *>f the maddest days in the history of a nation—the French Revolution. Lillian Gish is the central figure of a romance that is terrific in its appeal and. at times, lie ail. tending. In Ibe scene where she is thrown into the executioner’s cart by the fanatical Jacques For-get-Not, her impression of mute suffering recalls the agonised face of the crucified Christ, so terrified, so humble, let so forgiving. It is a moment never to be forgotten. The second tremendous punch arrives when the girl and her lover, Chevalier De Yaudrey are sent to the guillotine. The famous Danton, fiery leader of an outraged people, intervenes with the Tribunal and, with the reprieve thus gained, joins his comrades on horseback and makes tile dash to the guillotine gates just outside the city. Here is seen the most gripping episode of the whole picture. The fainting girl is prostrate almost between the cruel knife, while the galloping cavalry, mounting nil obstacles, dashing over bridges, breaking down gates, tramping on gendarmes, on to the rescue till the heart nearly bursts with suspense. The box plan is liowopen :a Lowry’- and patron- are advised to book early as to miss this master piece is to miss the greatest event ever attempted in the theatrical world.