AMUSEMENTS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 17, 18 September 1915, Page 6

AMUSEMENTS.

THE ARMIES OF EUROPE. .This much-discussed film drew a large audience to the Town Hall last evening, and appeared to he greatly appreciated.judging b.v tli/> enthusiasm which was awakened at times. The pictures, themselves, were not particularly startling, either as works of art or eve'n as applicable to the great struggle of which they were said to be so instructive, but then, perhaps, the difficulties under which the photographer had labored in securing rhe films were of such an alarming nature (according to the lecturer) that some may have silently offered up a prayer of thankfulness for the great 'privilege of witnessing the film at all. Perhaps this aspect did not not sfrike any but a fe\v ,of the audience, though it will be admitted that there was room for conjectures, of this nature. Howevor. there is no denying the fact that the lecture lifted the films out of the ruck of. the picture world. Mr Holmes, as befitted his role, was not too modest regarding his own experiences as a camera-man on the battlefield, and here again, one felt grateful for his escape from the fire of those terrible German'guns. To even imagine taking a photograph of buildings as they were struck by the shells and fell amid the dust and smoke of the war would make some timid souls shudder, indeed, the sight of ghastly wounds being attended to by the Bed Cross was so realistic that in one case at least, so it is said, it made one member of the audience ill. The views of Our Boys, the London Scottish, and other now-famous regiments doing their bit in the various .theatres! of the war aroused, cheers loud and prolonged. On the Pjther hand some of the pictures had an ancient look, and it seemed that, they had qualified for the "aged" class before they saw Stratford! Still, the writer might have been mistaken, and if so, an apology is herewith tendered. A feature of th p evening was the singing of Signor Abel Rowe, who gave "In the Fifing Line" Ca new song which promises to beyoriie very popular.; copies of winch are obtainable at Grubbs) and the well-known item "The Soldier." There was plenty of gusto ' in liis performan-vs, and many of the audienco ioined in the choruses. The management announced that some thousands of feet of absolutely new battle-scenes direct from jFlanders and the I Dardanelles will be brought round these patrts in the* course of a few months.