ST. JAMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 853, 23 December 1929, Page 14

ST. JAMES

TO SHOW VITAPHONE TALKIES When the St. James Theatre opens as a talking house on Boxing Day it will present Vitaphone production exclusively. The first of these will be “The Gold Diggers of Broadway,” an all-talking, singing and colour success, presented by an all-star cast. Just as Warner Bros., through their foresight and daring, blazed the trail to talking films by their pioneering of "Vitaphone, so today they guide the progress of this new art and set the pace for the whole motion picture industry. Holding the reins of leadership securely in their hands, they are now ready to combine their complete technical knowledge of sound, their vast financial resources, their surpassing studio equipment and their brilliant stellar talent to the production of the biggest programme of pictures ever planned. Millions of dollars will be expended by Warner Bros, during 1930 to bring to realisation their most extravagant dreams for Vitaphone. Leaving behind the period of experiment they will now present to the public the ultimate perfection of screen entertainment toward which the motion picture’s thirty years’ history has been but a prelude. Today colour has assumed an importance that closely rivals the first advent of sound. "With their initial all-natural colour production, “On With the Show,” for example, Warner Bros. have done their second great work of pioneering by offering to the public the first absolutely realistic colour feature, using the newest Technicolour process. They have made life dance, sing and glisten from the talking screen. “On With the Show” is a beautiful sunrise to the moving picture art.

In “Say It With Songs,” A 1 Jolson’s forthcoming picture, we have the supreme artist of talking pictures! He stands at the peak of his career, his art matured by three splendid roles. He is the pioneer actor of Vitaphone, the consummation of dynamic personality as revealed on the screen. More vital than “The Jazz Singer,” more appealing than “The Singing Fool,” “Say It With Songs’’ is A 1 Jolson’s supreme contribution ’to film art.

John Barrymore, greatest living actor, is another artist who will be seen and heard exclusively in Vitaphone Pictures. His voice will come from the screen for the first time in “General Crack,” a swift-paced adventure story of the seventeenth century. “The Gold Diggers of Broadway” is a worthy introduction to all these fine pictures, and a fitting production to open the St. James as a talkie house.