DRAMA AND COMEDY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 613, 15 March 1929, Page 15

DRAMA AND COMEDY

TWO FEATURES AT PLAZA OLD RUSSIA AND AMERICAN SPEED Her fiance was found murdered. She swore vengeance, and set forth to bring the murderer to justice. She fell in love with a stranger—and then found he was the killer. This amazing situation is the vortex of the maelstrom of dramatic events in “The Woman From Moscow,” Pola Negri’s new Paramount picture, which was shown at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres last evening. Regarded by Miss Negri herself as the most powerful and dramatic story in which she has ever appeared, “The Woman From Moscow” is one of the most unusual Paramount has ever produced. The picture has a rich modern setting, opening in the home of a General in command of the Kussian army. Miss Negri’s search for the murderer of the man to whom she had been betrothed since childhood takes her to the upper stratum of Paris society. This story, from the pen of Victorien Sardou, is the first directed in America by the master Ludwig Berger. Norman Kerry, in the role of the young Russian against whom Miss Negri leads the bloodhounds of justice, heads one of the strongest supporting casts of the year. Imagine, if you can, a young prosecuting lawyer storming all over the court room because the beautiful young defendant in a speeding case had collided with him on the way to court. That’s only one of the funny situations in “Red Ilot Speed,” the second picture on the programme, a comedy dealing with the American speedcraze, which Reginald Denny makes into a real laugh feature in the role of the lawyer. And if it weren’t for the judge’s sense of humour—really a realistic touch, for movie judges are usually so harsh—nothing could have happened. But he decides to punish both the defendant and Mr. Denny by paroling the young lady in the young man's custody. Tli young lady happens to be the daughter of the newspaper editor who is conducting an anti-speeding campaign, and the judge is a friend of her father, but doesn’t know her, and Mr. Denny, too, is a friend of her father, but he doesn’t know who she is either. She does not Avant her father to find out about her being in court, so she gives a false name. That evening Mr. Denny calls on her father and sees the daughter. Bright music and supporting pictures complete a first-class programme. At the Plaza Theatre, Mr. Howard Moody’s Symphonic Orchestra played for the overture “Orpheus in the N nderworld” (Offenbach), and also the following selections:—Ballet music, “Faust” (Gounod), three Songs from Eliland (Fielitz). “Reverie” (Tchaikowsky), opera, “Iris,” (Mascagni), “Poeme” (Fibick), suite, •Pelleas und Helisande” (Sibelius) “Russian Folk Songs” (Whishaw). comic opera, “The Vagabond King” (Friml), fox trots, “A Precious Love” (Davis), and “Polly” (Zamechik). At the Tivoli Theatre, Miss M. Anderson’s orchestra plays “Slavonic Rhapsody” for tho overture, and the following selections: “The Cossack’s Wedding Fete”; “Ballet Russe” (Luigini); “Gopak” (Mussorgsky); “Troka” (Kretsclimar): “Fedora” (Giordano); “Largo” (Dvorak); “Chopiniana” (Hosmer): “Nocturne” (Tschaikowsky); and “Romance” (Sibelius).