PRINCESS AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 287, 24 February 1928, Page 15

PRINCESS AND TIVOLI

BRIGHT PROGRAMMES A pleasantly varied programme of first-class pictures provided liberal entertainment for the audiences attracted to the Princess and Tivoli Theatres last evening. There was an element of humour in both the principal pictures, and this meant an agreeable relief from the constant tensity of drama. The first feature, “Out All Might,” is an engaging comedy starring the popular English actor, Reginald Denny. In many ways it is the finest picture he has done, and when his long considered this is the highest praise possible. Denny, with his simple, unaffected methods, gains original results which cannot be copied. In a curious way his personality masks indelibly each of his characterisations, but never has he done better than in “Out All Night.”

The hero of the story is a young man head over heels in love with a popular revue star. At the close of the revue s season the youth has not met his idol, but Fate, in her own way, brings about the meeting. The couple are in a lift, when the wires fuse, antf in consequence spend the night together between heaven and earth. This courtship is enough, and on release from their imprisonment they step out and get married. The only serious complication is that the girl’s agent had signed a contract for her the night before, and in it was a clause forbidding marriage. It then becomes necessary for the fact of the marriage to remain secret. The revue company sails for England, but not without the young husband, who is “shanghaied” aboard as ship’s doctor. It is then that the comedy works up pace. Denny, treating his susceptible women patients, is a scream. The difficulties, however, which confronted the; young married couple are happily overcome in the end.

“Man Crazy,” a romance of the historic Boston Post Road, revealed prettv Dorothy Mackail in the piquant part of a poor little rich girl whose surplus e ? e ?^ es re di . recte d to the maintenance or the American equivalent of a pie r |- i Honce develops a love affair that tends to be blighted by the disPartiy in the stations of the parties the chosen male being a truck driver! This minor difficulty is happly overcome through revelations that are the sequel to a thrilling affair with motor bandits. When it transpires that the lowly suitor is a Harvard man and a PeH, one of “the” Pells, even the frigidity of a fastidious grandmother thaws. Dorothy Mackail, as usual, is charming. Her grace and fragile, wistful beauty are unexcelled on the screen. There is an excellent supporting programme consisting of a comedy and a gazette.

Princess Orchestra, under Mr Howard Moody, played the following programme; “Barbara” ( Silver)'o Hish ” selections, “A Children s Suite (Ansell), “Nautical Scenes” (fletcher), “Voices of the Night,” and Away Down South.” If the official atmosphere isn’t correct in “Cheating Cheaters,” the Uni-versal-Jewel, it will not be because director Edward Laemmle lacked expert advice, for his assistant, Frank Geraghty, was at one time an officer on the New York police force, the city m wbjch the plot of the picture is laid. Eddie Gribbon, just one of the many crooks seen in the picture, is a native of the metropolitan centre, and offered his advice for many of the scenes. Practically the entire cast has, at one

time during their colourful career under the Klleigs, had the opportunity to study the New York policemen, so real action is anticipated from the screen law abettors.