STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 458, 13 September 1928, Page 14

STRAND

“SUNRISE” P. W. Murnau, the noted European director, scored one of his greatest successes with ‘‘Sunrise/’ the picture which is now showing at the Strand. “Sunrise” was produced by Fox Films and is the first picture which Mr. Murnau made in America. The Murnau wizardry spread to the members of the cast. Janet Gaynor, who rose to enviable fajne in “Seventh Heaven,” does a piece of work here which even surpasses that superb performance, and George O’Brien, who heretofore has merely been a fine upstanding hero, is made to show here that all the time he has had the calibre of one of the truly great actors for the films. It merely remained for Murnau to bring it out. The story is that of a young farmer who gets into the clutches of a siren from the city, who is on a vacation. At her request he agrees to drown his young wife so that he can go to the city with his paramour. But when he gets his wife out in a boat he falters in the deed and falls in love with her all over again. After a second honeymoon in the city he again gets her in the boat to take her home, when a violent storm overtakes them. He swims ashore when the boat sinks and, believing that his wife has been drowned, he decides that the siren must die in revenge. The wife, however, is saved by a bundle of bullrushes which he had intended to use in saving himself while carrying out the vampire’s plan of murder. Under Murnau’s hand this story develops into one of the most thrilling pictures imaginable. Miss Sarah Stagpoole, soprano, is heard in “The Angelus,” the beautiful prologue to “Sunrise.” A full supporting programme is being shown. Miss Eve Bentley has provided a special musical score for the Strand Symphony Orchestra.