“THE UNHOLY NIGHT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 867, 10 January 1930, Page 14

“THE UNHOLY NIGHT”

SPLENDIDLY PRODUCED FILM AT REGENT THRILLS—MYSTERY— MURDER Since the advent of the talking film, mystery plays have been among the favourite productions of the worlds most famous companies. This is only natural, as an eerie atmosphere can be many times intensified by the appropriate word or synchronised sound. Then, too, the inevitable explanation can be more gripping in the spoken word than by titles that require an almost strained attention to be fully understood. A large attendance at the Regent last evening placed the stamp of its approval on “The Unholy Night,” a drama as intense as its title suggests. The story opened in a London fog. where the sinewy hands of a mysterious strangler reached for his prey. From the fog-obscured street, the action of the film passed to an English mansion, where, one is led to believe, eight murders were committed in a night. The atmosphere was in keeping with the ghostly story. Curtains*, concealing goodness knew what, draped the walls of a house that breathed of mystery Whisps of steaming fog eddied outside heavily leaded windows, and the house and all in it seemed almost as a world on its own. The story dealt with the terrifying attempts of an elusive maniac to wipe from the earth the 14 remaining officers of a regiment that left all but that number as a mute testimony to endeavour on Gallipoli’s tortured ridges. His motive, the measure of his success, and his identity, were revealed in a satisfying and sensational climax. A pleasing feature of the pictiro was the field obligingly left open by the producer for those who, at a mystery play, like to decide who did the deed. In “The Unholy Night” there are many whom the audience may have ample grounds to suspect—the ominous doctor. What was he doing kneeling by a dead body in the middle of the night? The man with th« wooden leg, who was always on hand when a tragedy was imminent; the sinister Chinese, flitting like a shadow from room to room, and communing with the spirits of the dead by night: the major, who tried to climb out of a window after the first murder; the darkly beautiful Egyptian woman and he.r stealthy lover; the butler, who listened furtively in corners—was it all or any of these? All were possible suspects, yet not until the action revealed the manner of the crime, and who was responsible, could one be certain of the guilt of any of the eligible figures in the drama. Roland Young, debonair young Englishman, made his debut on the sheet as Lord Montague, whose pleasant personality and whimsical humour admirably relieved the tension in a film that was considerably more than

gripping. Ernest Torrance, Dorothy Sebastian (looking more beautiful than ever as an alluring Turkish girl). Natalie Moorhead, Sojin, Lionel Belmore, and Claude Fleming, were other notables in an exceptional cast. “The Unholy Night,” from Ben Hecht’s book, “The Boomed Regiment'’ is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer all-talking picture. It was produced by Lionel Barrymore, a man with a reputation for attending to the perfection of detail which leads to perfect screening. Assisted by the Regent “Syncopators,” Jack Lumsdaine, the “whispering baritone,” presented a new programme, including a particularly brignt effort analysing the construction of “Yes. We Have No Bananas.” Ewart Lyne was warmly applauded for a pleasing series of selections on the Wurlitzer organ. Mr. Lyne made his first appearance last evening. He comes direct from Vancouver, being

an English artist who has been playing the organ in Canada recently. An attractive supporting programme eluded a sparkling “Our Gang comedy.