STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 465, 21 September 1928, Page 14

STRAND

“RAMONA” THIS EVENING The management of the Strand Theatre will offer this evening the United Artists’ film production of the Helen Hunt Jackson work, “Ramona,” which stars Dolores Del Rio in th e title role. This theatre, always attentive to the tastes of discriminating audiences, presents “Ramona” with tlee sense of security that attends all truly great pictures.

Here is a picture that is entirely different from any photoplay of a twelvemonth. Here is wonderful acting: such sympathetic and understanding direction, such a wealth of natural beauty, and such a tender, passionate theme, that the finished product, the film “Ramona,” comes as near to real perfection as any human art can make. Primarily it is a love story, but it is also a tremendous plea for the vanishing race of Redmen, whom the arrogant whites persecuted rather shamelessly a generation or two ago. At the same time it cannot be called an Indian story; rather it is a stormy, splendidly living tale of a woman of mixed blood, and of the essential tragedy that always follows in the wake of such a personality. Indian and Spanish, the exotic Ramona loved by and loving an Indian and a Spaniard, found herself a gibe for destiny, a puppet in the great game of greed, and colonisation and the lure of gold. Her story, which opens in such felicitous surroundings and follows with a vivid romance and resultant tragedy, and ends on another chord of happinesS, holds ms few stories can. Perhaps it is the superb acting of Dolores Del Rio, or the fine characterisation of the Indian Allesandro, by Warner Baxter, but probably it is the drama itself.

Mr. Birrell O’Malley will be the soloist in the atmospheric prologue which precedes the screening of the photoplay. An interesting Strand Magazine, with the latest topical budgets and world pews, and a delightful “Our Gang” comedy, entitled “It’s a Bear,” are also on the programme.

Eve Bentley's Strand Symphony Orchestra will give a special musical programme. . .