MAORILAND PICTURES.

Shannon News, 27 January 1925, Page 3

MAORILAND PICTURES.

“MONNA VANNA”—A BANNED I PLAY. I

Commenting on the picture to Joe screened on Wednesday night, the London Times says:—“ ‘.Monna Vanna,’ Maeterlinck’s play, which was at one. time banned, ihas been made the basis of one of the most impressive films which, s.o far, has come to us. ... . The supreme incident is

the going of the saintly, handsome Giovanna from besieged Pisa, alone, by night, to the tent of the victorious Florentine general, her honour to be the price of a food convoy for the starving Pisans. In the treatment of this self-sacrifice in the film there is solemn, moving beauty, and to offend. The producer has allowed* it to be an incident 1 in a series of tremendous pictures. . . . introducing apparently tens of thousands of people. Miss Lee Parry acts with gentle charm and dignity in the title part, and Mr Olaf Fjord plays well the temperamental, chivalrous. Vitelli, who spares Monna Vanna the promised indignity, and, for love of her, comes to leading the Pisans against his own mutinous troops.” TRIPLE BILL FRIDAY. A big-value bill will .be presented at the Maoriland Theatre on Friday. The. main feature is “Lost and Found,” a picture that caused a sensation in Broadway, New York. The supports include a picture that was featured in Wellington. “The Shriek of Araby,” Mack Sennett’? great laugh-maker, with Ben Turpin and Kathryn McGuire. As a “sandwich man” Ben Turpin dreams that he is an Arab, with all the excitement of Arab existence in the desert. Beautiful ladies, wily magicians, and several fights provide him with the necessary excitement, which only ends when he awakes' to realities on Broadway. The supports are good, and the Black and White Orchestra will supply lively music.