“MOTHER MACHREE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 370, 2 June 1928, Page 16

“MOTHER MACHREE”

AT SißAmi NoXi WEEK Tho sheer beauty of the compelling lyrics of “Mother Machree” even haunted their author, Rida Johnson Young, until she was forced to write a story round them. And now Fox Films have translated this epic of Irish mother love and sacrifice to the screen, which will b.e released at the Strand Theatre on Friday next, with John Ford, maker of “The iron Horse, and other great successes. Fox Films have produced a memorable picture, poignant with drama, whimsical with humour and throbbing with life. The story tells of an lrisn mother, but it might be any mother, who leaves her home in Ireland with her little son, and goes to America to educate him. She fails to make a living for both of them, even with the kindly help of the Giant of Kilkenny, played by Victor Mcßaglen. Desperate, and thinking only of her son’s welfare, she allows him to be adopted by an aristocratic woman, Van Studdiford, so that he may receive an education she is unable to give him. The child is brought up by his foster-mother in the belief that his own mother is dead. Through the years, Mother Machree watches her son growing to manhood, achieving all she hoped for him and fulfilling all her dreams, while she is servant in the home of the girl with whom her son is in love. Brian, as a child, is played by Phillippe de Lacey, while Neil Hamilton interprets the same character, grown to manhood. Superlative acting is a feature of Belle Bennett’s performance in the name part of Mother Machree, and others who contribute to the success of the films are Ted McNamara, Eulalie Jensen and Pat Somerset.