NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 291, 29 February 1928, Page 15

NEW REGENT

CLARA BOW IN “HULA” The excellent all-picture programme at the New Regent has met with great success this week. Crowded houses have been most enthusiastic over the quality and variety of the entertainment. “I-lula,” the chief pictorial attraction, is a tropical story that is unusual in more ways than one. For one thing, the heroine is not a little native girl in a grass skirt who discovers that she is really white in time to marry the handsome son of the plantation owner in the sixth reel. On the contrary, “Hula,” played by Clara Bow, is said to be an authentic, poignant portrayal of a pleasure-mad, carefree, wayward miss. The tropical background is only secondary. The heroine is a girl who has been reared in what could almost be described as luxurious debauchery. The gay life of the wealthy w r hite tropic resident, with its gambling, drinking, flirting, and recklessness becomes her environment almost from birth. How she overcomes tills insidious effect to find regeneration and wholesomeness in love is told in stark, stirring fashion. “Stark Love,” a melodrama of the Californian mountains, is the second feature. A real musical treat Js the magnificent organ and orchestral accompaniment to another of that popular “famous Music Master series”—incidents in the life of Verdi. A strong supporting programme includes a Regent Gazette of interesting world events and an eccentric “Krazy Kat” cartoon. Leslie Harvey at the Wurlitzer receives enthusiastic applause for his rendering of “Pale Moon” and -‘My Blue Heaven,” while an excellent musical programme is given by Maurice Guttridge and the Regent Orchestra.