STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 147, 12 September 1927, Page 15

STRAND

“HIS NATURAL LIFE” "When Eva Novak, who is playing the role of Slyvia Vickers in “For the Term of His Natural Life,” now being screened at the Strand Theatre, first read the book, she found the dreadful inlet so realistically described in the famous novel that on her first visit to the old penal settlement at Port Arthur, Tasmania, she felt as though she had seen it before. Tears were in her eyes when she realised she was acting amid the scenes of such mental ancl physical anguish, a dim place haunted by the last sighs of men, lost to the world a hundred years ago. Her quietness at the time surprised Eva’s fellow players, but producer Norman Dawn understood. He knew that “For the Term of His Natural Life” was the greatest effort of Eva’s career, because she had learned to love that shadow of another century—broken Sylvia Vickers.

That the fame of Australia’s first magnificent super-spectacle has preceded it to Auckland and that it is exceptionally interesting and popular with Strand patrons, has been amply proved by the exceedingly large audiences who have waited impatiently for the famous photoplay to commence, even at the first screening on Friday morning.

A grand atmospheric prologue featuring the renowned Lyric Quartette precedes the picture. The Strand Symphony Orchestra plays a special orchestral score throughout. “Rose of England” is specially featured as the overture. A Strand Magazine showing topical events all the world over concludes a notable programme.