STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 648, 27 April 1929, Page 18

STRAND

“STREET ANGEL” So popular has the programme of synchronised musical pictures and talkies been at the Strand Theatre that the same programme is now being presented for the second week. The first part of the programme consists of a number of short talkie features. The chief of these is the reproduction of the King’s speech at the Newcastle-on-Tyne bridge. Then follows a singing act by Miss Gertrude Lawrence, an extremely popular London comedienne, also a speech by George Bernard Shaw. Other talkie items are a Fox movietone gazette, with events of the day in sight and sound, and a comedy by “Chic” Sale. Each of these talkies is remarkably clear and entertaining. The chief pictorial attraction is the romantic drama of Naples, “Street Angel.” Frank Borzage, the director, has produced another screen classic in “Street Angel.” This powerful drama, based on the play “Lady Cristilinda,’ by Monckton Hoffe, was selected after careful search through piles of manuscript as the most suitable vehicle to follow “Seventh Heaven,” his masterpiece of last year. Borzage is confident that in it he has something as great, if not greater, than the famous romance of “Chico” and ‘“Diane.” Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell are costarred again in the featured roles. The story opens in one of the twisted side streets of old Naples, where Masetto, the owner; Beppo, the contortionist; Bimbo, the clown; the Strong Man, and Little Coco, the monkey of the Circo Neapolitana, entertain the crowd. Not far away in a dingy attic little Angelina faces the problem of providing medicine for her sick mother. She has no money. She is desperate to find a quick means of earning it. Below, in the streets, -=he sees a garish-looking woman “cruising.” She watches, fascinated. Desperately she decides to try this method of obtaining funds, but is crushed with , failure. She joins the circus, and rises to be its star, then falls in love with a wandering artist, the role played by Charles Farrell. “Street Angel,” while not strictly a talkie, is accompanied throughout with a special synchronised musical score, played by the 110 instrumentalists of the Roxy Theatre orchestra. New York.