AMUSEMENTS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 96, 23 April 1912, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE. The programme at His Majesty’s Theatre last night opened with some beautiful yachting pictures entitled, “White Wings on the Solent.” One was enabled to follow a most exciting yacht race to the finish, this film being much appreciated by the audience. Another good film was a “Central American Romance,” a nautical drama nith a most exciting finale'. The Australian Gazette was fully up to the standard of these very excellent pictures, the racing at Flemiugton Park being very good indeed. “The House that Jack Built” pourtrayed a domestic drama, which was both pathetic and humorous, while “Billy Makes the Butter’ ’was of a very entertaining character. After the interval, “The Bells,” the star film of the evening, was screened. At the least, these pictures fully realised anticipation. The opening pictures were very fine, showing the interior of the inn, with Mathias, the inkeeper, his wife and child. Father Walthcr and Hans, his friends and others. The period of the scene is the year 1818, and the place the frontier of AI sace. Mathias, the innkeeper, is in financial difficulties, and is consequently desperate. A fierce storm is raging without the inn, so that his friends cannot depart. In the height of the storm a Polish Jew arrives on a sleigh, and socks shelter for a few hours. Unfortunately for himself, he discloses to Mathias a belt full of gold. Mathias, in sore need of money, plots his murder and spoliation, which he successfully effects at the Cross roads, after tiie Jew lias left the inn. The pictures depicting the murder and Mathias disposing of the Jew’s body by flinging it into a lime kiln are most dramatic. The realism of the drama is greatly enhanced by the mechanical effects introduced, illustrating the howling storm, the sleigh bells, etc. The orchestra is to he complimented on its very appropriate choice of mtisic, that which is rendered at the outset of the drama being a fit accompaniment of the storm, and conveys to the hearers a sense of the underlying tragedy. Mr Booth man is to be congratulated on his fine rendering of Mathia’s dream, in which Mathias fancies himself arraigned before a court of justice for the murder of the Jew, and compelled by a mesmerist to enact the whole scene of the murder before the Court. It was a, fine piece of dramatic elocution. The rest of the pictures, which are all exquisitely staged, bring the story to, its conclusion, the final scene showing the death of Mathias with his crime still undiscovered. The programme will be repeated this evening, when “The Bells” will be shown for the last time.

On Wednesday evening six new pictures will be screened to replace “The Bells.”