NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 590, 16 February 1929, Page 15

NEW REGENT

TWO FINE PICTURES Proving itself one of the finest pictures of the year, Vera Reynolds’s latest He Mille star feature, “The Main Event,” is now being shown with unusual success at the New Regent Theatre. That the photo-play should have scored as emphatically as it did is not surprising, for it is beyond question thrilling, dramatic, novel, beautiful and appealing to a degree. Miss Reynolds does the best work of her screen career in this entertaining picture as a dancing girl who loves “Red” Lucas, a prize fighter. She lends herself to a scheme to aid her sweetheart; who is double-crossing her, to render Johnny Regan, his ring rival, hors de combat by dancing with him night after night at the cabaret

where she is employed, the result being that seemingly he is physically unable to meet his ring engagement. Then the girl falls in love with her victim and spoils Lucas’s rascally game. Thinking the girl he loves has played him false, Johnny enters the ring and properly

thrashes Lucas and wins the championship. The picture is packed with thrilling scenes. The work of the star and her supporting players, notably Rudolph Schildkraut, Charles Delaney, Robert Armstrong and Julia Faye, is highly commendable. The direction is as nearly faultless as can be, so that by and all “The Main Event” is a production worth travelling far to see. “Four Walls,” the second big picture, is John Gilbert’s answer to any assertions that a great lover on the screen needn’t necessarily be a great actor. In this picture Gilbert is both a great actor ar* 1 a great lover. * The picture is, without question, the best piece of dramatic acting Gilbert has done on the screen. At the same time it contains a sufficient number of real lionest-to-goodness love scenes to satisfy the most exacting of the Gilbert fans. Joan Crawford, who co-stars for the first time with John Gilbert, plays the role of an under-world Venus. Most enjoyable songs and duets by the world-famous grand opera singers, Russo and Bradford, and new selections by the Regent Operatic Orchestra, under Mr. Maurice Guttridge, complete the programme.