STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 216, 1 December 1927, Page 17

STRAND

BUSTER KEATON IN “COLLEGE”

The monster double bill at the Strand Theatre will be shown for the last time this evening. To-morrow commences one of the funniest comedies of the year to be shown.

“College” is the title of Keaton’s latest-United Artists laugh opus, and in addition to being a brand new idea in screen fun, the feature is easily the best vehicle in the frozen-faced star’s career. Crammed with action from start to finish, “College” presents an imposing cast of professional! actors and actresses, as well as scores of famous athletes, many of them allAmerican and Olympic champions, who sists Buster in picturising the lighter side of university life.

Keaton has a real story in “College,” a story which abounds in human interest. The picture opens with Buster, playing a typical small-town high scnool graduate, receiving his diploma. He is a studious lad, the son of an oyer-indulgent mother who has reared him to be a bookworm. Provincial professors have convinced the youth that brains are mightier than brawn, and in his graduation address he denounces athletics.

But when he enters college his sweetheart tells him he’ll have to become an athlete or she will never tolerate him. So Buster buys all the trappings and offers himself as a sacrifice on the altar of strenuous sport —with amazing results! He fails in baseball and track, but finally, through a twist of fate, blunders into a job as coxswain of the varsity crew and surprises everybody, even himself, by making good. During the unfolding of the screen comedy many famous athletes are seen in action. They include Bud Houser, Lee Barnes, Morton Kaer, Sam Crawford, Charles Borah and scores of others who have won fame in intercollegiate sport, in professional baseball and at the Olympic Games.

A Strand Magazine, one of those hilarious Aesop Fables, “The Best Man Wins,” a comedy, and a special dancing film, “Six Wonderful Nights in Paris,” make up the supporting pictorial programme.

The musical side of the programme has not been forgotten. Eve Bentley’s popular Strand Symphony Orchestra will render one of their bright pro-

! grammes and, in addition, Miss Gwen , Evans will render several popular [songs.