PRINCESS AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 35, 4 May 1927, Page 15

PRINCESS AND TIVOLI

“THE SILENT LOVER” There will be something to please every taste in “The Silent Lover,” Milton Sills’s new star picture for First National, which comes to the Princess and Tivoli Theatres to-morrow. When Carey Wilson adapted the famous European stage play, “The Legionnaire,” for the screen he took full cognisance of the possibilities of the locale and the scope of his medium. So he supplied colour galore. The diplomatic assemblage, brilliant with officers’ uniforms and resplendid evening gowns worn by the women; the Arabian sequences with the native costumes in gorgeous hues, the atmosphere of the desert, the mountains of the Riff country, the ancient Arabian cities and some gay scenes of Paris—all formed wonderful picture material. In addition, there is the intense and human drama—the young and successful diplomat by his own excesses cast from the pinnacle and forced to seek forgetfulness in that strange company known as the French Foreign Legion; his loves, his redemption, his restoration to his high place and happiness—affords a great opportunity for the finished acting of the star. Beautiful in many ways—the beauty of women, of high endeavour, of sacrifice, of love and life; heightened by the atmosphere and the strength of purpose embodied in the story, “The Silent Lover,” is a really romantic and exceptional picture. Milton Sills has the role of the brilliant but rather reckless Count Tornai, and gives a fine performance of a character in complete contrast to some of his other recent successes.