“MARE NOSTRUM”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 16

“MARE NOSTRUM”

A BIG ATTRACTION An inspired film version of the celebrated Spanish author, Ibanez’s book of the same name. This is in many respects one of the most remarkable war films we have seen. It features a powerful romance of unrequited love and the war is merely an episode in it. It shows actual scenes in Spain and Italy and the supernumeries are actual residents of the cities and not hired actors camouflaged in borrowed clothes. It has an international cast and its types are most faithfully cast. Rex Ingram, Irish producer, can faithfully claim to have produced a film with a world-wide appeal, divorced from parochial sentiment and outlook. Captain Ulysses Ferragut comes from a familv of seafaring men and is born with the love of the sea. His wife is a cold, forbidding woman, who urges him to forsake the sea, ere his ventures end in bankruptcy and ruin the prospects of their only son. War breaks out and with it the chance of carrying valuable cargo the freight for which will restore their fallen fortunes. His ship, “Mare Nostrum,” is engaged freighting war materials and produce, and whilst holidaying between cargoes at Naples he meets a beautiful woman, Freya, who is to his eyes the personification of the goddess Amphrite, whom his family have long worshipped in their dealings with the sea. A mutual love is born between the two, and Freya, who is travelling with an eccentric female, Dr. Kedelmann, persuades him to assist her friends by navigating a ship to a lonely part of the Mediterranean. Intoxicated by his love for her, Ferragut consents. The mission he goes on is to take oil and provisions to a German submarine. The significance of his action is not borne upon him until he learns by chance that his little son has followed him to Naples to endeavour to bring him home away from the toils of the siren, and has been killed when the submarine sinks a passenger boat. Thereafter he becomes a fiend for vengeance. Chance brings him to Paris, where Freya is hiding. Her friends believe that she is a traitor to them and wilfully expose her as a spy by means of a telegram in a code which is known to the French Government. She finds Ferragut and implores him to save her, but vengeance for his son’s death is uppermost in his mind and he spurns her. Freya is shot as a spy and Ferragut carries on his scheme of vengeance by lending his ship to the French Government as an auxiliary cruiser. The same submarine torpedoes the Mare Nostrum, but Ferragut’s final action is to fire the shot which sinks the submarine. His vengeance completed, Ferragut sinks into the bosom of Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) to join his son at last. A beautiful and impressive film which stands to the credit of the whole motion picture industry with its compelling force and supreme artistry. “Mare Nostrum” commences its Auckland season at the .Majestic on Friday next.