STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 737, 9 August 1929, Page 15

STRAND

“SHOW BOAT” One of the most moving romances ever told on the screen, as well as one of the most spectacular productions ever made, is being presented at the Strand Theatre in Universal’s sound and dialogue super-film, “Show Boat." This colourful epic of the Mississippi Valley and of Chicago in the last generation, embodying the glamorous love story of Magnolia, the young show boat girl, played by Laura La Plante, and Ravenal, the romantic young gambler, played by Joseph Sell ild kraut, is based upon the internationally famous novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.

Included in the presentation are the movietoned highlights of the celebrated New York musical production, "Show Boat,” staged by Florenz Ziegl'eld with noted Boradway stars. This interpolation, which enables theatregoers actually to see and hear the New York production in their own theatre, was made possible only by special arrangement between Carl Laemmle, president of Universal, and Mr. Ziegfeld. Helen Morgan and Jules Bledsoe are the outstanding Ziegl'eld stars heard. “Show Boat” itself, which also is superbly presented in sound and dialogue, was made by Harry Pollard, the famous director who was responsible for the Universal masterpiece, ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The company supporting Miss La Plante and Schildkraut includes such favourites as Otis Harlan, Emily Fitzroy, Alma Rubens, Jack McDonald, Jane La Verne, Neely Edwards, Elsie Bartlett, and many others. In its music, “Show Boat” is a veritable anthology of America’s popular music of the last half century. From the old-fashioned favourites of the “eighties,” rendered by a strident steam calliope, and by melodious darky voices, down through the “coon-song” and “ragtime” age to the present negro spiritual era, the music is well played or sung and gloriously reproduced.