“SOFT LIVING” AT EMPIRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 479, 8 October 1928, Page 14

“SOFT LIVING” AT EMPIRE

Dolores Costello in “Old San Francisco” is the Empire Theatre attraction this evening. And “Old San FYancisco” is a ng melodrama of the colourful days before the great fire when the glamorous City of the Golden G da E bary Coast known as “The Mile of Hell,” and a Chinatown which burrowed deep in the earth anct hid a thousand gruesome secrets. The story has to do with a Spanish heiress who is kidnapped by a half-caste boss of the underworld, and offered for sale in a subterranean auction room dim with the fumes of the poppy and garish with teak and sandalwood and gilded There is a burning story of love and unselfish devotion, and the climax, one of the most terrific ever pictured, is the great fire, which ended the sway of the underworld.

Haunting the dark coves of Lower Manhattan, slipping, by way of the river,’ ’in and out of the huge warehouses that line the waterfront, taking what he wants of rope and ships’ materials, and selling it to skippers of outgoing ships—that is the life of the river pirate. Sailor Frink and the Kid, played by Victor McLaglen and Nick Stuart, lead this life in Fox Films’ drama, “The River Pirate.”