PLAZA AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 480, 9 October 1928, Page 14

PLAZA AND TIVOLI

“UNCLE TOM’S CABIN” TO-MORROW

“The Wreck of the Hesperus,” first written as a ballad by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1839, and later set to music by J. L. Hatton, is the newest classic to be utilised by a film producer as screen material.

The film of the same name is now being shown at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres. Swift action, fine romance, tense drama, delicious comedy—these are elements that make “The Wreck of the Hesperus” one of the greatest pictures of the sea ever filmed, a wonderful production that will be hailed as a classic wherever shown.

“No Place to Go” is the title of the second picture on the programme. Hallam Cooley, Virginia Lee Corbin, Jed Prouty and Myrtle Stedman are in the cast of this picture. Commencing to-morrow, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” will be shown at these theatres.

Next to the Bible the most widely translated book in the history of literature is “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” say experts. The famous novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe has been printed in 27 languages, in addition to nine dialects of the East Indian and Polynesian natives.

It has appeared in drama form on the stages of practically every civilised nation and it is regarded by the rest of the world as a page of the epic history of the United States.

There is no one who is able to read who has not delved into the novel and suffered with Little Eva, laughed at Topsy, sympathised with Eliza, hated Simon Legree and pitied poor Uncle Tom.

The picture has been made on a lavish scale. On its completion it had been in production two years, and its cost was nearly £400,000. Worldwide interest is being manifesthed in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as a photo-play, and it is being heralded far and wide as one of the most pretentious superfilms ever made by Universal. There are no civilian war scenes in the picture. The appearance of the troops on the march fit into the plot, and in no place do they show as combatants. To tell the truth Mrs. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a thrilling book, containing three distinct stories, melodmamatic in their thrilling human intensity, and correlated through the inclusion of the same characters. As such it has stood the test of three-quarters of a century of popularity in the home, the public library and on the stage.

A large percentage of the huge expenditure, it is said, went to the filming of the many scenes in the locations depicted in the book. The story begins in Kentucky; carries Eliza north across the Ohio River by the “underground railway;” returns to Ohio, to the Mississippi, down the river to New Orleans, back up the river to Simon Legree’s plantation—