Love and War

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 608, 9 March 1929, Page 25

Love and War

“THE WOMAN DISPUTED”

Norma Talmadge at the Strand A DRAMA of tlie war between Russia and Austria is “The Woman Disputed,” a new Norma Talmadge production at the Strand. This is a Henry King- picture under the famous banner of United Artists and the supporting cast is headed by Gilbert Roland, a hew and popular leading man.

Like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin and other noted artists, Norma Talmadge is now carrying out a programme of bigger pictures and fewer of them. It is a programme that is safe only when a player is in an assured position, for the danger that he or she will be forgotten during the long intervals between her appearances is considerable. On the other hand we learn to recognise that the pictures are really good; that they are worth the wait. "The Woman Disputed” is just such a production. It is big in every way —artistically, technically, histrionically—indeed, a fitting attraction at “the home of big pictures.”

The cast Includes Gilbert Roland, Arnold Kent, Boris de ITas, Michael Vavitch and Gladys Broekwell. The story tells of two ycung officers, Russian and Austrian, who abandon their friendship following the outbreak of war, aud because of a quarrel over a reformed street woman who has given her love to the Austrian. Later she-falls into the jrower of the Russian, who threatens to shoot a number of Austrian high officials unless she surrenders herself to him. For the sake of her country she complies. A fierce engagement between the opposing forces takes place on the following day. The Russian is wounded mortally, hut, before dyiug, he tells the victorious Austrian of his fiance’s “unfaithfulness.” The lover rejects her, but learns afterwards the truth of her sacrifice. Scenes both beautiful and spectacular are included in the brilliant sequences of “The Woman Disputed.” It is a production for the most discriminating of audiences.