MAJESTIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 226, 13 December 1927, Page 15

MAJESTIC

“THE UNKNOWN” In “The Unknown,’* which is now being shown at the Majestic, Lon Chaney, greatest character player on the screen to-day, plays Alonzo the Armless, with consummate artistry. It is a role he alone could execute. Pie outdoes* his marvellous performances in “The Unholy Three, “The Road to Mandalay,” “Tell it to the Marines,” and even “Mr. Wu.” Joan Crawford, as Nanon, proves that stardom is but a short distance away. She is easily one of the most physically-perfect girls on the screen, and a splendid artist as well. Another player of great importance is Norman Kerry, as Malabar, the strong man of the circus, and devoted lover of Nanon, although she constantly rebuffs him. When Alonzo hurls his glittering steel at the girl during their act in the circus ring, he is consumed with agony in case the Armless Wonder should for a moment lose his uncanny skill. From the very commencement, “The Unknown” sweeps into a mighty flood of everpresent drama, which finally involves the ruin of the circus and the scattering of the performers to the four corners of the earth. Then the three, Alonzo, Nanon and Malabar, are the central figures in a series of grim events that bring, the story to its crashing close. Something new and interesting in the way of entertainment is provided at this theatre by a “wonder” woman, who gives a remarkable demonstration of mind concentration. Cases of the mind working in one direction, while the hand works in another, are rot uncommon, but the sight of Remo na, reading, writing, spelling, adding figures, and talking at one and the same time has astonished all who have seen her on the stage. A superb musical programme is provided by Mr. Whiteford-Waugh’s Majestic Orchestra, which renders as its overture Rossini’s famous “Barber of Seville.” This combination also includes in the musical gems rendered, “Three Eastern Sketches,” Howgill; “In Old Granada,” Hadley; “Schubert’s Songs,” “Meditation,” Tschaikowsky; “Spanish Lances,” Stagger; “Serenade,” Salcede; “Cleopatra Suite,’ Oehmler. . The supporting programme is made up of the Majestic News and Eye’s Review, with glorious scenes of Norway and Lapland, pathecolour views of Penzance, and “The Garded Mount, and the French battlefields, and a hilarious Fox comedy, “Mum’s the Word.”