MAJESTIC THEATRE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 284, 26 July 1932, Page 3

MAJESTIC THEATRE

TO-DAY AND TO-NIGHT Ronald Colman returned to the screen of the Majestic Theatre last night in a stirring, rip-snorting adventure yarn, "The Unholy Garden." As stories go, here is stern and racy stuff from the pens of. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, coauthors of "Front Page" and outstandingly successful contributors to the screen and stage. ' The Unholy Garden " refers to an outpost at the edge of the Sahara wastes, where renegades from fhe law hide., safe from the police and extradition. The decayed splendoui' of a once magnificent resort gives sanctuary to a strange gathering of outcasts, awaiting forgetfulness or forgiveness. Civilisation offers each of them jail 01- worse for a different reason. The suave, polished and mannerly bearing that came to be known as Ronald Colman in "Bulldog Drummond," "Raffles," and "The Devil to Pay" is gone, and in his stead, the English star is a recklessly minded and a recklessly dressed adventurer, as indifferent of dress and appearance as he is to morals and manners. In other words, "The Unholy Garden" is Samuel Goldwyq's answer to the fans demanding Ronald Colman in a picture of action. For "The Unholy Garden" is action — as much action as his memorable "Beau Geste." Yet in "The Unholy Garden," as in all Colman pietures, the light romantic touch is still there. The English star is still a persuasive lover, touchingly gallant even as a philanderer. Goldwyn has given the picture his usual lavish production, with rich colour of the Algerian desert oasis as an inspiration to Scenic Designers Willy Pogany and Capt. Richard Day. Plodding camels, Bedouin horsetraders and Arab sword makers, minaretted towers from which the faithful are called to prayer, and buttressed walls from which the proud tricolour flies, guarded by leatherskinned Legionnaires — ^these are details in the picture's magnificent landscape. Always fortunate in his leading ladies, Colman's luck continues in the contrasting beauties of Estelle Taylor and Fay Wray. Miss Taylor is seen as the wanton voluptuary of the story, "the tomb of a lady," the outlawed and decadent English aristocrat, the Hon. Mrs. Mowbry, while Fay Wray is the grand-daughter of the recluse and blind old embezzler the Baron de Jonghe. Society arid civilisation are to her merely pietures in the Paris papers that come to her now and then. For the twenty years of her life have been spent in this abandoned resort, reading to and taking care of the thief.