NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 645, 23 April 1929, Page 15

NEW REGENT

“THE BELLAMY TRIAL” “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury As these words are heard in the theatre, the man and woman on trial bow their heads. The prosecutor is demanding their lives. The weight of the evidence has tipped the scales against them. Is there no hope? You will be just as surprised as they were when you see what happens just before the case goes to the jury in "The Bellamy Trial,” the part-Talkie picture which is now at the New Regent Theatre. This mystery drama is a masterpiece of suspense, a gripping courtroom epic that thrills the audience with the realism of the trial scenes and the characters as they are both seen and heard. The story, by Frances Noyes Hart, is well known, but in the talkie dialogue and film version of the murder narrative you will find something new in the way of cinematic story-telling that will bring it before you as a fresh plot. To begin with, you will not realise you are seeing “The Bellamy Trial” until the first reel is well under way. It comes to you via a current gazette that carries the audience from news scenes into the court-room where the murder case is being brought to trial before a jury. As for the ending—after you see it, don’t spoil the surprise for your friends by telling them about it. Everyone tries to guess it, of course, as the picture goes on, but the dramatic climax comes so abruptly and without warning that it attains a new pinnacle for cinematic suspense treatment. The effect is heightened by the dialogue sequences. Beatrice Joy, as the beautiful murder defendant, gives a remarkable performance that well may be hailed as a triumph for her first talkie. George Barraud is ideally cast opposite her as the husband whose loyalty is unshaken by a mass of circumstantial evidence. Kenneth Thompson is the man on trial with Miss Joy. The pair are accused of the murder of Mimi Bellamy, wife of the accused man, who once was engaged to the husband of the beautiful suspect. The outcome of the trial leaves the murder still unsolved, but in the very last footage of the feature the mystery is dispelled. The Regent programme also includes a number of short “talkie” features that are very entertaining. These include songs by Joseph Regan, the well-known Irish-American tenor, items by Ella Shields, the popular London comedienne, piano work by Vincent Lopez and a comedy by two black-face artists, "Burnum and Bailey.”