HIPPODROME AND EMPRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 233, 21 December 1927, Page 15

HIPPODROME AND EMPRESS

TOM MIX IN “THE CIRCUS ACE”

Tom Mix is always a busy man on the screen, but In “The Circus Ace,’* his latest Fox Films starring: picture, now at the Hippodrome and Empress Theatres, he is busier than usual. The story opens with Tom grabbing the parachute of a beautiful girl who has just cut loose from a balloon sent up to advertise the performance of the circus.

Tom's trail leads back to the big top, where lie is chased to the roof. He steps on a bit of rotten canvas and falls to the p'fcrch of the trapeze performer. He lands long enough to see that the trapeze performer is the parachute jumper and tumbles into' the life-net, from which he bounces to the back of a horse, where he lands on his feet. With this introduction the romance begins and the story leads through the clean-up of a gang ot political crooks who have kept the town subject to gang rule. There is a romantic conclusion when Tom’s gun writes a message of lead reading “I love you/' while the trapeze performer nods her reply, “the same to yourself.” Among the others in the cast with Mix and Miss Joyce are Duke Lee, James Bradbury, junr., Stanley Blystone. l>udley Smith, Edna Gregory and William Caress.

Bebe Daniels is Miss Caprice when it comes to pets. Her first was a dog, one of the rare Sclinauser breed. She forsook him while filming “Swim, Girl, Swim,” and adopted a tiny pig as her mascot. When she began making her latent picture, “She’s a Sheik,” Miss Daniels attached a baby camel to her company. That has been replaced now by Olga, a leopard, which serves not only as a pet but as an important member of the cast. » * * Douglas Fairbanks's “The Black Pirate” and Irvin Willat’s Wanderers of the Wasteland*’ are the two bestknown full-length colour films. Miss Griffith, tren, is one of the few major screen actresses to experiment with colour in film production. She considers the use of colour in “The Garden of Eden” particularly appropriate because it is employed in picturing highly fantastic dreams.