AMUSEMENTS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 68, 15 March 1912, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE. • There was not a weak feature in ■ the splendid programme that was ■ screened at Bernard’s pictures last evening before a large and very appreciative audience. ■ Of the three scenics shown, an exceptional one depicts winter in Finland, the snow effects .being magnificent. The comics are superb. The tramp on rollers produced roars of laughter, the action of the film being simply immense. “Trailing the Counterfeiters” shows two would-bo sleuths on the war-path. Their final effort when they knock through the wall, where the counterfeiters should have been hiding, only to find themselves in the arms of the police at the station, is unexcelled as a laughterraiser. “The AVidow Visits Springtown” introduces that popular actor —“the fat man”—whose, presence alone is sufficient guarantee of the liu r mour of the piece. There are four dramas. First comes “Saved by ii Pony Express,” an reciting film, in which there ts a race to save an execution for murder. It is conspicuous for a masterly exhibition of rough-riding. “Courage of Sorts” is another good one. But the best of all is the “.star” drama “Fighting Blood.” It is an incident in the life of settlers in the northwest of America, and is produced in masterly manner, with happly little touches of humour interspersed with the grim reality of a siege by Indians on the war-path. A feature of the film is the largo number of men engaged. There must be at least seventy or eighty Indians, and at least three hundred actors in the whole picture. For once in a while, the marksmanship produces some result, and men and Indians reeling from the saddle is the order of the day. Inside the cabin there is a realistic scene, and when one views alternately the heroic efforts, of the boy to reach the soldiery, and the grim detenninaotion of the defenders to hold out till the last, one cannot but think that here is the art of the cinematograph in its fullest and .best. Then, 'when the siege is raised, and the boy is in bis father’s arms, the intense excitement is relieved, a's the camera shows the two youngest creeping forth from under the big four-poster. To-night the same hill "will be given, and on Saturday night, the anniversary of Madame Bernard’s Stratford enterprise, an additional inducement is offered in the opening of the new dress circle, which, the management claims, will give patrons as fine a view or the screen as has ever been given to picture lovers throughout tho Dominion. ()u Monday night “The Two Orphans” should produce a bumper house.