Paris Tragedy

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 27

Paris Tragedy

“MADAME X” AT REGENT

Ruth Chatterton’s Great Acting

WHEN Ruth Chatterton retired from the American stage, her honours thick upon her, she did not anticipate talkies. Now she is back in the limelight—that of the studios—and her work is delighting the entire film world. “Madame X,” showing at the Regent, is her second important screen offering. It is an excellent play distinguished particularly by the brilliant acting of the star, who delighted pi&ure-goers with her work in “The Doctor’s Secret.”

Supporting Ruth Chatterton in her new release is Lewis Stone, a tried and proven talkie player, while others are TJllric Haupt, Raymond Hackett and Holmes Herbert. An outstanding feature of Ruth

Chatterton’s acting is its sincerity. This, combined with her power of c h a r a cterisation, places her among the most able stars of the film world. Moreover, she possesses striking beauty and photographs perfectly. In "The. Doctor’s Secret” her performance

came as a refreshing and most appealing change from the almost stereotyped style of many dyed-in-the-wool screen actresses. In “Madame X” the pleasant experience is repeated. Although the theme of the picture is a sombre one and the story a tragedy (dramatically speaking), there is nothing of the unrelieved and depressing gloom that has characterised similar but less successful ef-

SYMPOSIUM ON TALK OPINIONS OF LONDONERS One of the London papers has oeen collecting opinions from its readers upon the dialogue films. The result is summed up as showing that “the public finds considerable room for improvement in the talkies at present.” and it is added that the bulk of the criticisms “regret in no uncertain way the charm and lost tranquility of the silent film.” A prize was awarded to the following sample of the crit cism sent in: “The talkies, as I have found them, are at once amazing and disappointing One must think of their possibilities rather than their present performance. At the moment they are destroyers of illusion. The silent film stirs one’s imagination and holds it—the talkie scatters the sense of reality. Thu crude voices make the whole theme into a clever stunt in which we cannot believe.” The writer is a woman. Mr. G. A. Atkinson, film editor of the "Daily Express,” which organised the competition, records the general view that, until the crudities of talking films are removed, they can be looked on only as a novelty and not as a permanent form of amusement.

| forts. For this one must thank i Lionel Barrymore, who accepted from j Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer the directors’ ! megaphone and brought into play a j wealth of legitimate stage experience, j The plot unfolds absorbingly and steadily the life of a woman who made a mistaken marriage, accepting the inferior of two brothers. She is driven to leave her husband and son, afterward sinking to the depths. Her tragic career ends when she murders a blackmailer, and circumstances decree that her son be appointed to defend her in court. The climax of the play comes swiftly, presenting an arrestingly dramatic moment, and the picture closes on a note of pure pathos. “Madame X” may be claimed to be one of the Regent’s most interesting films since the appearance of talkies.