“SORROWS OF SATAN”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 66, 9 June 1927, Page 15

“SORROWS OF SATAN”

TO-MORROW’S SCREEN SENSATION "Sorrows of Satan,” one of the year’s big film sensations, produced for Paramount by the great master, D. W. Griffith, from the notable Marie Corelli story, will come to the New Regent Theatre to-morrow. There are some amazing scenes in this film, which opens by showing Lucifer, son of the Morning and Child of God, being banished from Heaven with the ultimatum that for every soul which rejects his advances he shall be rewarded -with an hour inside the gates of Paradise. Introduced to Prince Lucio de Rimanez, we find him tremendously wealthy, courtly, suave, personification of “man of the world,” and the delineation of all that we moderns hold as evil. He tempts the weak, drops the falling, places pitfalls in the way of the unwary. Succeeding in his efforts, Lucio is made sad. travelling even further from his rightful kingdom. Finally, one soul has the courage to pass him by. Immediately, in a blasting fanfare of trumpetry, we see the Heavenly portals swing wide. Fascinating? David Wark Griffith thought so many, many years ago. But not until joining Paramount Pictures

was Mr. Griffith enabled to attempt anything quite as stupendous as the picture he had visualised. Approaching Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky, president and vice-president of Paramount, they too became imbued with enthusiasm. The “great maestro” Was given carte blanche and told to select whom he would for his cast. Screendom was fine-combed and hundreds of players tested before Adolphe Menjou was finally selected as the incarnation of a dress-suited Satan. Ricardo Cortez became Miss Corelli’s hero, Geoffrey Tempest. Carol Dempster, “the perfect Griffith heroine,” fitted into her role as Mavis Claire; and Lya de Putti, sensation of the Continent, won a symbolical part as modem Feminine Evil. With such a cast and the resources of the world’s finest motion picture company behind him, it is no wonder that Mr. Griffith has made a film which has been enthusiastically hailed by critics and public alike as the cinema sensation of the century! A special musical score arraned by Maurice Guttridge will be played by the Operatic Orchestra and the overture will be “The Caliph of Bagdad.” Eddie Horton’s new numbers at the Wurlitzer will include “Berceuse” from

“Jocelyn” and “Waltz Parisienne” (Roberts'). Donald Stuart, the “sevenfooter master of mirth and magic,” will open his second week with new tricks and fun, and there will be excellent supporting features.