NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 17

NEW REGENT

“MADAME X” A stage play that has probably enthralled more audiences than any drama of modern times is the basis of the latest sensation of the talking screen, ‘ Madame X,” which conies today to the New Regent Theatre with

Ruth Chatterton, celebrated stage star, as heroine, and directed by a stage celebrity of equal' note —Lionel Barrymore. Barrymore has introduced something new in talking screen technique and the result is engrossing entertainment, minus

the imperfections Lionel Barrymore of the earlier offerings of the audible screen. 1 Sarah Bernhardt created the role, in the first performance of the famous drama, in Paris. Today, almost twenty years later, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s talking version, first play to combine perfectly the technique of the silent screen and the lore of the stage, is 'a greater triumph than the original premiere of the stage drama in Paris. “Madame X,” latest sensation of the talking screen, is the sum total of one man's experienco in practically every art of the entertainer. The gifts of an actor, a, writer, a musician, and a painter of pictures, have all been blended into it. Lionel Barrymore directed it. And Lionel Barrymore is the total of all these things. He has been one of the greatest actors of the American stage, and the son of America's most noted theatrical family, in whose blood run all the traditions of the American stage art its best. He is a talented musician. He has won national recognition as a painter and also as a writer. / Now, having forsaken all these arts for the direction of talking pictures, he makes use of them all. The remarkable pictorial effectiveness of ! “Madame X” is the result of his art i studies in Paris when he forsook the stage to paint. In some cases, as in the courtroom setting, he even drew the original sketches. The use of the music in the island scenes shows his musician’s trick of using music to work out a bit of psvchology. It is bis experience of 1 technique in both stage and screen i that makes “Madame X” a distinctly new form of screen drama. Ruth Chatterton, one of the leading exponents of the talking film and a famous stage actress before she became identified with the new entertainment medium, plays the tragic and mj'sterious “Madame X.” Lewis Stone plays the husband who casts her out and Raymond Hackett her son who, without * knowing who she is, defends her at the bar when she is charged with murder. Others in the cast are Ullric Plaupt, Eugenie Besserer, Holmes Herbert, Mitchell Lewis, Sidney Toler, Carroll Nye, Claud King and others. The brilliant talking, singing and dancing fea/turettes which make up the remainder of the programme include songs by Johnnie Marvin, gramophone recording artist; selections, songs and dances from Joe Spitlany’s Band; another revue by Gus Edwards in natural colours, and, finally, a Pathe Audio Review.