PRINCESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 229, 16 December 1927, Page 15

PRINCESS

“SMILE, BROTHER, SMILE” A motion picture greatly above the ordinary and of an entirely new theme is being shown at the Princess Theatre this week. It is “Smile, Brother, Smile.” Who has ever before heard of a story being made round the life of a commercial traveller? Yet the producers of this really fine picture have constructed a story that is truth* fully “different.”

This is a comedy-drama based on the life and adventures of a travelling salesman, excellently played by Jack Mulhall, who is becoming known as one of the most popular light comedians of the screen. Dorothy Mackaill. in the role of a clever telephone girl, is as sweet a fiancee as was ever associated with her celebrated partner in this story.

Briefly the play tells of Jack Lowry, a shipping clerk, in the office of a large cosmetic proprietary, who yearns to be a travelling salesman. He is disliked by Renrod, sales manager of the company, who is attempting t.o win from him his fiancee, Mildred, also an employee of the firm. Mr. Bowers, president of the organisation, however, gives him a chance as a salesman and to celebrate. Jack and Mildred go to a fashionable cafe for lunch. There they see Renrod with the manager of a rival concern and Mildred overhears a conversation which leads her to believe Renrod is secretly in the pay of the other company. When Jack starts out on his first trip, Renrod sends him messages designed to prevent him from making a creditable showing, but Mildred intercepts them, with the result that Jack proves his worth. Exciting complications follow the purchase of a huge stock of cosmetics and by a daring piece of strategy Mildred exposes the machinations of the double-dealing Renrod.

A second attraction, “Her Man o’ War,” featuring William Boyd and Jetta Goudal, is a vivid story of a soldier and a German girl that is woven into a background of war. Jim Sanderson, a soldier, is captured as a spy by the Germans and is ordered to be shot and how he is saved at the eleventh hour by the pretty girl behind the enemy lines makes a tender and appealing story.

Specially-selected music consisting of excerpts from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas rendered by Mr. Howard Moody’s Princess Orchestra is proving a well-merited attraction.