PLAZA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 811, 4 November 1929, Page 15

PLAZA

“RIVER OF ROMANCE” Delightful entertainment is provided at the Plaza Theatre in ‘ River of Romance,” Charles Rogers’s starring vehicle, which opened there on Friday. •‘River of Romance, based upon the famous Booth Tarkington play, .Magnolia,” has everything that is desirable in a talking picture. It has a. gripping plot, actors who can talk and wear period costumes, local atmosphere and a romantic theme that rolls softly through the colourful scenes of Southern life in the 184" s like the languid “Father of Waters ' itself. , It is a new kind of role lor Buddy Rogers, lie*' appears as a soft-man-nered youth who returns to his paternal home in a Mississippi plantation to be confronted with the brusque and bewildering code of duels and feuds and “honnuh, suli.” Refusing to light a duel, he is branded a coward. Me comes back, though, in a startling fashion, eventually winning the girl who had loved him through it all. Mary Brian is bewitching as the ciemure Southern girl who loves Buddy, and June Collyer, as the coquette, is effective. Excellent character work is furnished by Wallace Beery, Fred Kohler, Mrs. George Fawcett, Henry B. Walthall and Natalie Kingston. Rogers's voice has a happy quality of youthful freshness and vigour and Miss Brian intones her lines with engaging intelligence. The sound background of river life and plantation days was pleasingly injected into the play by Richard “Wallace, the capable director. It is a picture that young and old will enjoy. The talkie supports include an alltalking comedy sketch. songs by Madame Rosa Raisa, and a Paramount Sound News. Eddie Cantor, most famous of the New York comedians, is the latest addition to the cast of Paramount's musical comedy, “Glorifying the American Girl.” Cantor, assisted by Lew Hearn, will present an original skit written' by himself.