STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 586, 12 February 1929, Page 15

STRAND

“TWO LOVERS” “Two Lovers,” the big - picture now at the Strand Theatre, is good entertainment. An interesting romance interspersed with a dramatic and thrilling mystery angle, the picture is Samuel Goldwyn’s best, and also the best of the co-starring films of that successful and popular pair, Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky. Adapted, the original source of this film, excellently directed by Fred Niblo, was that beloved thriller, “ Leatherface,” by Baroness Orczy. Always there has been interest in the forced marriage of Lenora de Vargas, of Spain, and Mark Van Rycke, of Flanders—-and always a thrill over the two “enemies,” “Leatherface,” that mysterious masked one who stood between the conquering Spaniards and the subject Flemings for the benefit of the latter. The vogue of “The Cat and the Canary” type of picture proves the vogue of mystery—but in “Two Lovers” Mr. Gldwyn and Mr. Niblo have given a delightful combination of both romance and mystery. The result is sure to be crowded houses. T 1 e cast is excellent. Noah Beery, Nigel de Brulier, Virginia Bradford, Helen Jerome Eddy, Paul Lukas (an interesting new Hungarian “discovery”), Harry Allen, Fred Esmelton and Marcella Laly—all give excellent performances and are well cast. A word of praise must be said for the sets by Carl Oscar Borg. They are always beautiful and tremendous in size on occasion. The streets of Ghent stand as one of the best worked-out mass scenes of the sort we have ever seen and we can well believe the producer’s claim that it is one of the biggest ever built.

A colourful stage presentation, in which Mr. Birrell O’Malley is the soloist, precedes the film, and excellent musical accompaniment is provided throughout by Eve Bentley’s Symphony Orchestra.