MAORILAND PICTURES.

Shannon News, 24 April 1928, Page 3

MAORILAND PICTURES.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY—•“ BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT.' ’

Rafael Sabatini has written /some of the most entertaining novels of the present century, and of these none is more popular than “Bardelys the Magnificent.” This swiftly moving story is painted with vigor and charm on the broad canvas afforded by the colorful life of France in the sixteehth century, and the author’s vivid imagination is allowed full play in the tale lie unfolds of love.rpmance, adventure, and intrigue. Like many others of Sabatini’s novels this has been transferred with marked success to the screen. “Bardelys the Magnificent” will be shown in motion picture form Thursday and Friday evenings at the Maoriland Theatre.

As written by Sabatini, .flic story is of a gay Frenchman, who is forced by a humiliated fop into a wager that he will marry within three months a certain Lady Roxalanne, famed throughout, the land for her beauty and coldness. And so Bardelys sets forth to woo the fair creature whose graces were a torment to a hundred fiery Frenchman. The title role* is portrayed by John Gilbert, the star of “The Big Par* ade. ” Women and men will find him absolutely irresistible as this gay cavalier of old France. One moihent he is the lover, pouring forth his devotion in the tumble of burning words his dark eyes alight with the fire of love. The next lie is the merry, irresponsible, licartbreaker of a thousand flirtations. Then in a sudden sweep, he become the brillian swordsman, whose leaping, darting, flashing blade rings against other steel, soon to be stained with the proud blood of another nobleAgaiu, and we see him in athletic feats of incredible daring; vaulting oyer charging spearmen, scaling towering castle walls, thundering on horseback through the leafy lanes of France, swooping, speeding, flying through a thousand adventures. -

As the cold and beautiful Lady Roxalanne, Eleanor. Boardman iis superb . And what a foil for Gilbert’s dark handsomeness she proves. Their love scenes are beautiful examples of the ultimate in artistry and photography, particuarly the scene on the river, in which there is a delicacy and beauty that seem inspired. Roy D’Arcy is particularly convince ing as the arch-villian of the story, and Karl Dane contributes another priceless characterisation. Others in the cast of this spectacular Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer picture’ 5 are George K. Arthur, Lionel Belmore, and Arthur Lubin.