NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 14

NEW REGENT

TWO NEW PICTURES The historic old church at Tahiti, built by the first ■white missionaries, and where the first of the natives were Christianised, was turned into a motion picture setting in the making of “The Pagan,” Ramon Novarro’s new starring picture coming to the New Regent Theatre this evening.

Tlie old church, mentioned in John Russell’s novel, from which the play was adapted, was located in the islands, and used for the vivid service in which Novarro, Donald Crisp, Renee Adoree and Dorothy Janis appear. Other historic spots in the

islands, also mentioned in the novel, were looked up and used in the picture so that it was literally filmed on the ground covered in the book itself. “The Pagan” is a vivid romance of life in the tropics, with Novarro playing a young island chief, torn between his love of a native sweetheart and the' treachery of an unscrupulous trader. Miss Adoree plays Madge, the adventuress from afar, and Miss Janis the island girl. The picture was made in its entirety in the islands, and directed by *VV. S. Van Dyke, director of ‘‘White Shadows in the South Seas.” Vivid island scenery, a terrific battle with sharks, and other sensational thrills intersperse the romantic details of beautiful story. During the past few years Douglas Mac Lean has apeared in pictures of a great variety; one time he is a mountain climber; then he’s on a lion hunt

in Africa; perhaps in a farce comedy of thrills thrown in for good measure. In ‘‘The Carnation Kid” he was a typewriter salesman who became an unwilling terrorist and gunman to the accompaniment of many side-splitting laughs and sure-fire comedy situations. In “Divorce Made Easy,” which conies to the Regent as the second feature this evening, Doug is just a nice young man-about-town, but he comes in for more than the average man-about-town’s quota of farcical buffeting. The production, which is completely talking, is one long dislocating laugh from start to finish. Great support is furnished by Marie Prevost, Johnny Arthur. Frances Dee and Jack Duffy.