MAJESTIC’S CHANGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 424, 4 August 1928, Page 17

MAJESTIC’S CHANGE

“THE GARDEN OF ALLAH’’ “Only God and myself know what is in my heart!” The Mohammedan injunction is the ever - recurring theme in “ The Garden of Allah,” the new Metro-Goldwyn-May er production featuring Alice Terry and Ivan Petrovitch, which was presented to Majestic patrons last night by the Fuller-Hayward management. The Kitchen’s novel has lost none of its sentimental appeal by its picturisation. “The Garden of Allah” is a more artistic production than any of the well-known sheik series, but fundamentally it is much the same. There are, for instance, the same elemental desert passions. "Waving palm trees. Multitudes of followers of the one and only Prophet, vowing that Allah is the one and only God, and weekly bending at prayer in the glowing sands. Galloping horsemen; and caravan bands across the Alice Terry real African desert —the picture was actually photographed in Algeria and not, bo it clearly understood, in Texas. A much be-palmed oasis, and dancing girls, and particularly grimy beggars. The hero, however, is not an Arab. Ivan Petrovitch, a convincing player, plays the role of a. Trappist monk, who discovers that he can no longer adhere to the three vows of his order. He heard the Mohammedan musician piping: “Only God and myself know what is in my heart!” These were his own sentiments. The abbot of his order certainly was not aware of them until the worldly-inclined monk had decamped. The supreme test of character comes, However, when the ex-monk, after marriage, renounces his wife and child, and returns to the lonely monastery. Alice Terry is the young woman who accepts Ivan on his face value, Quite unaware that she was marrying a former Trappist monk. Rex Ingram was responsible for a production whose chief claim to fame is on account of its excellent photography. j. Whiteford Waugh and the capable Majestic Orchestra, without doubt one of the finest combinations of its kind in New Zealand, or, for that matter, Australia, provided something quite novel in the way of an interlude. “The Chinese Temple Garden,” presented with artistic stage effects, in which a large and important-looking golden image played a prominent part, was received with genuine appreciation. The Majestic Gazette showed the

Prince of Wales engaged in his many public duties. One day he is presenting the golf championship cup to Walter Hagen, and on another, attired in appropriate Scottish costume, he opens the new Tweed Bridge. The pictures of the Nobile expedition have a peculiar significance just now. “A Texas Round-up.'’ the scenic, had all the ingredients of a good Western, minus the plot. Max Davidson, in romping through “Blow By Blow,” a Hal Roach comedy, completed a well-balanced entertainment.