“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 454, 8 September 1928, Page 25

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

A UNIVERSAL MASTERPIECE

Season For O'Brien Theatres

A UCKLAND is having no lack of good screen entertainment this year. An important addition to the list of special films to be offered shortly is “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a 2,000,000 dollar Universal production considered to be that company’s masterpiece. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” has been secured by O'Brien’s Theatres.

It was expected that Universal would endeavour to mak.e a special feature of Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic of the slave days , hut director Harry Bollard has surpassed all existing standards in super-Jewel productions .

was intended to illustrate graphically the plight of America’s negro slaves. It is easy to believe that the film took two years to make and cost nearly 20,00 dollars a week, for the success are almost bewildering in number and variety, while the majority of the settings were specially prepared. Moreover, the cast is a large and expensive one, including such names as Edmund Carew, James Lowe, Mona Ray, Virginia Gray, John Roche, Gertrude Astor, and Lucien Littlefield. The work of James Lowe in the part of Uncle Tom is admirable and he is particularly well supported by the others. Every effort has been made to follow the story with greater accuracy than has ever been achieved by a producer of the legitimate stage, and every scene is dealt with fully and adequately. Eliza’s trip over the floating ice is one of the sensational features of the picture, but there are many dramatic moments, relieved by just the right amount of picturesque romance.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is one of the most popular and successful novels ever written, and it takes a place of unique prominence in American literature. To do the story any sort of justice, a film must be unusually good —a fact that the Universal people have realised to the fullest. The settings and sequences of

“U n c 1 e To m’s Cabin,” make it peculiarly suitable for cinema presentation, and it reveals the enormous scope for realism and expression of vivid emotional action that is possessed by the modern motion picture camera.

The tragic and pathetic story of Uncle Tom, Topsy, Eva, and the villainous Simon Legree, is familiar to everyone, and it is only necessary to emphasise the fact that the book

The masterly touch of Pollard’s direction is reflected in every foot of film, and there are times when it is almost possible to inhale the sweet scent of magnolias and hear the soft voices of crooning darkies, so truthfully does the picture mirror the old South.