STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 730, 1 August 1929, Page 16

STRAND

“SHOW BOAT” COMMENCES

After the final screening this evening of the film, “4 Devils,” starring Janet Caynor, the spectacular all-talk-ing production, ‘’Show Boat,” will be given its initial Auckland presentation. This special ‘midnight matinee” will commence at 10.45 o’clock, and a buffet supper will be served during the interval. Seldom is a theatre afforded the op- i

portunity of presenting to the public a motion picture of such unusual merit as “Show Boat”— and accordingly. the management of the Strand Theatre is justly proud to announce the presentation of this Universal super talking production to its patrons.

ill us pauuuo. "Show Boat” is not merely a motion j picture. Besides being an intensely l dramatic picturisation with dialogue* of Edna Ferber’s famous best-seller of.l, the same name, the production in-1 1 i dudes, in sound, all of the famousf| musical hits of the Ziegfeld extrava-j ganza, “Show Boat,” presented as ai* 4 integral part of the programme by the f world-famous stars who appeared a£ the Ziegfeld Theatre, New York. Therefore, besides seeing as living characters the immortal romance which I Miss Ferber gave the world in fiction, theacre-goers actually hear the equivalent of a high-priced New York shom,as a part of their entertainment. In order to procure such a programme for the picture, Carl Laemrnlo, president of Universal, Florenz Zies;*J'eld, producer of the New York shaftr, Jerome Kern, publisher of the music al hits, and Oscar Hammerstein 11., sun of the famous impresario, combined their vast theatrical interests to reproduce in movietone the highlights of Ziegfeld’s New York production to be incorporated in the picture. “Show Boat” itself is the £200*600 *>ffort. of Harry Pollard to picturise in lavish detail the exotic and romajtfiiic «*pic of the riverbank show folk. 1 life along the giant Mississippi is one of the most fascinating of American ‘history, and into this colourful peirfiod rame floating the glamorous st<jrnwheeler carrying its cargo of minstnelsy and mirth. Golden-voiced darkies sat at the gangplank crooning the tuneful melodies over the slow-moving m«>©nlit waters. And no less romantic than they were the pirouetting ladies, the languorous Southern gentlemen wk*£> appeared in the melodramas aboard. The Townsfolk came to the riverbank/ 1 and sat enraptured at the wonders they saw and the music they heard— -marvelled as they gazed upon the beauty of Magnolia, played by Lausa La Plante on the screen, and listened to the impassioned words of R* tvenal, played by Joseph Schildkraut. The box plans are open at the theatre for the "midnight matineis,” and for the first week of the season.,