EMPIRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 288, 25 February 1928, Page 12

EMPIRE

“PAID TO LOVE” George O'Brien has had many fights in his screen career, but it is doubtful whether he has ever had a more realistic encounter than that in which he figures with William Powell in “Paid to Love,” Fox Films’ version of an original story by Harry Carr, which is being shown at the Empire Theatre. In this production Powell, cast as the heavy, is called on by Director Howard Hawks to make certain uncomplimentary remarks about a girl friend of O’Brien, who is cast is Crown Prince Michael. This conversation, which takes place in a mess-hall, is overheard by O’Brien. When the two Princes fight there is a grand scramble on the part of 25 officers assembled in the mess. In the terrific encounter which follows, O’Brien and Powell completely wreck the quarters, smash innumerable bottles and glasses, and finish on the floor under a table. The second feature on the programme is “Bobbed Hair,” starring Margie Prevost and Kenneth Harlan. Working all night in a sea of mud, in which at times horses and men sank so deeply that they had to be pulled out with the aid of motortrucks, the John Barrymore compu \l,~ filmed some of the most spectacular scenes of “Tempest,” a United Artists’ picture with the Russian revolution as a background. Three hundred actors, some of them veterans of pre-revolu-tion Tsarist armies, worked in the scenes, which depict the trek of heavily guarded gangs to the front in the World War. Barrymore, playing a Russian soldier, who in the latter part of “Tempest” becomes the leader of a band of rebellious troops, pre- ! sented a bedraggled appearance as he floundered through the mire. The night’s work was in strange contrast to scenes made the previous afternoon, when the star, immaculate in his officer s uniform, danced with Camille at a court ball which picturised ail the gaiety and luxury of the Russia k that was.