PLAZA AND TIVOLI

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

PLAZA AND TIVOLI

“LOVE AT MIDNIGHT”

Unity of time, place and action is always valuable, though by no means often employed on stage or screen as Aristotle would have hoped for. In “Love at Midnight,” starring Billie Love, now at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres, the action is most | on board a French cruiser on the eve of the World War. A French courtroom is the only other scene of importance. Most of the important scenes take place during a night—“the night before Armageddon.” The story centres about one woman and three men. The woman is Mi*ss Love, wife of the captain of the cruiser. Lonald Reed is one of the men, one who would like to be her lover; Paul Lukas is the captain: Nicholas Soussanin is the cynical and vengeful heavy. About the quartet is woven a drama that is one of the most poignant ever conceived. Alexander Korda, who directed the picture, has given it the true European atmosphere and quality. The scenes are all effective, the drama is convincing, and it is declared that in no recent picture has the beautiful star appeared to better advantage.

The settings are really superb. That on the turret deck of a cruiser, with the enormous guns and the various trappings, the sailors and the activity, is exceptional. These match with actual ship scenes made at sea.

“Lo Your Duty,” the Charlie Murray picture which is on the same programme, is the story of a police sergeant who is framed by a crook and demoted after being made a lieutenant. How he gets even by capturing the crooks and exonerating himself forms a picture full of fun and excitement. Pretty Loris Lawson is leading woman in an ingenue role. Long scenes and unusual camera angles are used to heighten the emotional and dramatic effect of the superproduction of Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs,” which will open at the Plaza Theatre on Thursday next, with Mary Philbin and Conrad Veidt co-starring. Paul Leni, the director, will be remembered for his artistic use of camera angles and shadows in Universal’s “The Cat and the Canary.” “The Man Who Laughs” is one of the biggest pictures ever turned out by Universal, and is expected to surpass “The Hunchback of Notre Lame” for popularity.