PLAZA AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 650, 30 April 1929, Page 19

PLAZA AND TIVOLI

“THE CASE OF LENA SMITH” “The Case of Lena Smith,” an unusual story of Hungarian life, will be shown again this evening at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres. Esther Ralston and James Hall are the stars. The picture opens in a little Hungarian village in 19J 4, where Lena Smith, a woman of 40, and her farmer husband, Stefan, watch a youth inarch off to war. Twenty years earlier, Lena has departed from her home village to Vienna. Behind her she leaves the drudgery of farm work and, with it. Stefan, who wants to marry her and vows to wait until she returns. In an amusement park in Vienna, Lena meets Franz Hofrat, a dashing young Austrian officer and, in a short time, she falls in love with him. The funniest theatrical scenes ever filmed are an important part of Glenn Tryon's “The Gate Crasher,” the second feature at both theatres. In these scenes Tryon is surprised on the stage when the curtain goes up and not being a member of the troupe is forced to go through with an act so as not to spoil the show. Patsy Ruth Miller is featured with Tryon, while the supporting cast includes Beth Harol, T. Roy Barnes, and A 1 Smith. Among the supporting pictures are exclusive views of the Anzac Day ceremonies, also the aerial pageant at Mangere. An additional attraction is the screening of exclusive pictures of the Canberra’s search for the missing Southern Cross. Other scenes show Lieutenant Anderson and Hitchcock commencing their ill-fated journey in the Kookaburra, and views of Wyndham, Derby and the territory where the search was conducted. Anna May Wong, the little Chinese actress, who first became known through her exquisitely graceful playing of the slave girl in the Douglas Fairbanks picture, “The Thief of Bagdad,” will be seen shortly in this country in her first British International picture, “Show Life.” According to all the leading European critics. Miss Wong simply scores a triumph in this picture as the little Malay girl who is befriended in an Eastern city by a music-hall artist, and whose partner she finally becomes. “Show Life,” incidentally. is the first British picture to be made with two distinct endings, a tragic and a happy one. A replica of the Folies Bergere was built at the Paramount studios for scenes in Maurice Chevalier's first starring picture for that organisation, titled “The Innocents of Paris.” Chevalier himself was a star at the Folies Bergere in Paris, where he danced and sang as the partner of the famous Mistinguette. *