STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 350, 10 May 1928, Page 14

STRAND

“RESURRECTION” “Resurrection,” the famous photoplay from Tolstoy’s immortal drama, will begin its third week of screening tomorrow. For some weeks, Auckland picturegoers, were entertained by Charlie Chaplin and “The Circus,” but now a drama of life is portrayed in this photoplay, about which one critic has written: “ ‘Resurrection’ gives us life in all its stark reality. The deep sorrow in the lives of the chief characters is made all the more vivid against the setting of Russia in the latter part of the 19 th century—its people governed with the severity always to be linked with the Tzarist regime. “It is an age-old story and in this case it is unfolded dramatically step by step to a climax, unhappy yet strangely satisfying. Prince Dmitri, a student full of the idealism of youth, is staying at his aunts’ estates in Central Russia. He meets Katusha Maslova, ward of his aunts, and their lives, are linked in happy, innocent love-making. Called to serve his time with the army in St. Petersburg, the Prince leaves his first love, vowing life-long fidelity. Two years in the whirl of army life and gaieties and Dmitri, his ideals shattered drops into the life of the accepted “old campaigner,” with numerous affairs to engage his attention. He returns to Katusha a changed man with a different love. A sojourn of some months in camp and he passes by his aunts’ estates in a special troop train. Katusha hurries to the station to see him. Frantically she runs up and down the platform. She finds him but it is only to see him making merry with another woman. Disillusions. %it follows, quickly followed by hopeless, aching grief—it is a scene in which Dolores Del Rio, who enacts the part, excels as an emotional actress. Years pass, and Dmitri becomes a much-respected citizen, Katusha sinks lower and lower. Again the two are brought together, Katusha being on trial for murder, and the Prince as foreman of the jury considering the case. She is sentenced to exile for life, and the Prince, the cause of all her sorrow, seeks retribution by voluntarily accompanying her into the Siberian prison camp. Eve Bentley deserves much praise for the masterly manner in which she directs her augmented Strand Symphony Orchestra, through the stirring “1812” overture, by Tschaikowski, and the special musical programme rendered throughout the evening.