STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 581, 6 February 1929, Page 15

STRAND

“TWO LOVERS” ON FRIDAY It becomes increasingly clear to the observer that the team of Colman and Banky is slated for final and irrevocable dissolution. Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky have attained the point where each is an individual star in his and her own right. “Two Lovers,” the Samuel Goldwyn production, which will come to the Strand Theatre on Friday, is the last photoplay in which the famous pair may be seen together. It all began with “The Dark Angel.” Do screen audiences remember back that far? In this they were a pair in modern England cruelly kept from each other by a minor catastrophe generally referred to as the World War. Next was “The Winning of Barbara Worth,” whose locale moved all the way out to Arizona and its justly notorious deserts. The great movie-going public had as yet no certain means of identifying the team beyond the knowledge that they invariably appeared as true lovers whose course ran anything but smoothly. So someone conceived the positively inspired notion of presenting them in a costume story. “The Night of Love” came to town. Strong men swooned and women threw their bonnets out of the nearest exit. America’s exponents of amorous art, as achieved through -the restraint of decorative clothing, had come up. Very soon after that “The Magic Flame” was revealed to a palpitant public, who had already decided exactly what they wanted from Colman and Banky, and who were getting it on an elaborate scale. Then, just as everything seemed to be set for a long embroidered future, “Two Lovers” was flashed on the Embassy screen in New York simultaneously with the general announcement that no more would the eyes of the universe be fastened on the embraces of Ronald and Vilma. Tears were shed all over the place, but no one could be found to deny that the final film was a gorgeously impressive one with which, to close another chapter of cinematic history.