NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 610, 12 March 1929, Page 15

NEW REGENT

LAST DAYS OF “THE BUSHRANGER” Only two more screenings will be given at the New Regent Theatre of “The Bushranger,” the story of Australia in the early days, with Dale Austin in a leading role, also of “Baby Cyclone,” the amusing comedy of domestic bickerings. and lap dogs, starring Aileen Pringle and Lew Cody. On Thursday next the Regent will present the great epic of the Klondike gold rush, “The Trail of ’98.” Had the Marquis of Queensbury viewed the desperate fights staged by Ralph Forbes and Harry Carey in “The Trail of ’9B” he would have turned over in his grave! Every rule and regulation pertaining to gentlemanly fisticuffs went by the board when the two actors battled for tlie affections of that Mexican charmer, Dolores Del Rio. When Director Clarence Brown ordered them to “fight as if 3 r ou were lighting for your lives,” the two husky actors not only went at each other with their fists and feet, but heaved everything else they could lay hands un. Practically everything on the set, with the exception of the heavy Kleig lights, was wrecked! Many articles were broken over the heads of the players; a huge water-jug and basin did not give quite the right effect when shattered over Carey’s head, so the director ordered a new set four times as thick as the first one! “The Trail of ’9B” is the Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer screen version of Robert W. Service’s story of love and adventure against the background of the Klondyke gold rush that sent men into the frozen wilderness of the North, and rivals “Ben Hur” in cost, elaborate production and dramatic interest. From his home in Paris, France, Robert W. Service, author of “The Trail of ’98,” has written a letter of appreciation to Louis B. Mayer, vicepresident of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, thanking him for a set of “still” photographic scenes of Clarence BroAvn’s stupendous screen version of the story. The author states that he “went over them with a magnifying glass” and “the eye of an old sourdough,” and concludes, in part: “I have not been able to discover a single fault, although at this distance of time my memory of that unprecedented stampede is still vivid. I hope that the picture itself soon reaches the boulevards of Paris so that I may have the pleasure of seeing it, and I hope you have the success your incomparable, initiative on behalf of the movie-loving public so richly deserves.”