PRINCESS AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 24, 20 April 1927, Page 11

PRINCESS AND TIVOLI

THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER A new type of production for Rich--ard Talmadge, which contains all the elements which have made this remarkable young star so popular and yet which has more logic and interest than is customary with pictures which feature stunts, appears to-morrow at the Princess and Tivoli Theatres, when “The Mysterious Stranger” is shown for the first time in this locality. If advices from Hollywood are any criterion. this production caused something of a furore when pre-viewed before the experts of the film capital. It is an adaptation by James Bell Smith, who has taken such parts of Lr. Samuel Johnson's famous old story, “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia,” and has used them to spendid advantage on the screen. There is much in the work of the one-time dictator of English letters that makes superb screen material, as “The Mysterious Stranger” proves conclusively; and the only surprising thing is that little if any of it has ever been used before. Lirector Jack Nelson has developed the really excruciating comedy sequences with fine skill, and the attempt of Lick to break into the insane asylum, under the impression that the wall surrounds the house in which he so long lived away from the world, is one of the funniest bits that could have been conceived. An excellent cast is seen in support.