PLAZA AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 537, 14 December 1928, Page 15

PLAZA AND TIVOLI

A FINE PROGRAMME Every once in a while reviewing a motion picture is a joy, such as yesterday when “Heart of a Nation” opened at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres amid the heart-throbs and laughs of the audience. This picture deals entirely with the American immigration problem* told with an understanding heart from the viewpoint of the immigrant. It is a remarkable insight iuto the life past Ellis Island. The pictures of

_ _ . fathers retaining George Sydney the habits and customs of the old world and the children thoroughly Americanised is touching and pathetic, especially in the case of the German family when America, the land of adoption, declared war on the Fatherland. George Sidney is splendid as the Russian immigrant who is just trouser presser after 15 years in the States. Albert Gran and Daisy Belmore, as the German parents, give appealing portrayals, and Michael Visaroff and Rosita Marstinin are well cast as Italians. The younger generation is capably portrayed by Patsy Ruth Miller, John Roles, George Lewis, Eddie Phillips, Josephine llunn and Flora Bromley. 4 Others deserving of praise are Beryl Mercer, Kathlyri Williams, Edward Martindel and Andy De Vine. The second picture on the programme had the same rare quality of holding both drama and comedy. This is “For Alimony Only,” dealing with the divorce problem. The story tells of Peter Williams (played by Clive Brook) who got a divorce from his first wife, Narcissa, only on the understanding that he pay her living expenses or alimony. He then meets the girl of his dreams in Mary, whom he promptly marries, but very shortly falls behind in his alimony. A court order follows Narcissa's protest about Peter’s back alimony, and to help save her husband’s money, Mary takes a job. It is with an interior decorating establishment, and the course of her work takes her to the new apartment of her predecessor, Narcissa, whom sho has never met. Tho contact of these two women—one in an inferior position in order to pay tho alimony of the other—works in a poignantly gripping situation. Peter, bitter because Mary lias to work, goes to Narcissa and begs her to be generous about the money, She intimates that if he was “nice” to her she might be generous, and he halfheartedly tries to play up to her. Mary, in the next room measuring draperies, sees through a glass floor this apparently intimate love scene between her husband and an unknown woman. A denouncement follows —in which Peter is confronted by his two wives. Beatrice Joy’s acting o£ the role of Mary is excellent. At the Plaza Theatre Mr. Howard Moody’s orchestra played for the overture, “The Fortune Teller,” and incidental music included “Ballet Egypian,” “Whirled Into Happiness,” “Apple Blossoms,” “Lend Me Your Aid,” valse “Lyrique,” and “Petite suite de Concert-Romance.”