STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 348, 8 May 1928, Page 15

STRAND

“RESURRECTION" A notable programme is being offered to Strand Theatre patrons in “Resurrection,” the United Artists’ picturisation of Tolstoy's famous story of Russian life, and hailed as one of the outstanding productions of the year. The plot of “Resurrection” is laid against th© Russia of the Tsarist regime, when the people lived in sorrow under a harsh and severe rule, while the army and social life in the capital was marked by luxury and extravagance of every description. In the screen version, which closely follows Tolstoy’s story throughout. Rod La Rocque and Dolores Del Rio have the leading roles. The story opens with the innocent love of Prince Dmitri for Katusha Maslova, a peasant girl, who is the ward of his aunts. Called to serve in the army the prince leaves with regret, vowing life-long fidelity. After two years in the dissolute life of the army circles in St. Petersburg, he returns a changed man. whose ideals have given way to cynicism and profligate living. He is recalled to camp, and leaves Katusha, who hurries to the station to see him pass in a troop-train. When she finds him in a drunken condition making merry with another, woman, she gives way to disillusionment, followed by grief. With the passage of years, th© prince becomes a respected citizen, the girl sinks lower and lower. The climax is reached when the prince is acting as foreman of the jury before which the girl he has betrayed is charged with murder. A spectacular stage prologue, “Th** Burning of Moscow,” precedes the screening of the photoplay, while as a musical introduction, Tschaikowsky’s famous “1812” overture, is rendered by Eve Bentley and her augmented Strand Symphony Orchestra.