MAJESTIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 870, 14 January 1930, Page 15

MAJESTIC

LAST DAYS OF “DARKENED ROOMS” The first all-talking role Doris Hill ever playc?d was in a mystery picture, “The Studio Murder Mystery.” Now she is in another one, “Darkened Rooms.” Winsome little Miss Hill is one of the supporting players to Evelyn Brent, who makes her debut as a Paramount star in the production. “Darkened Rooms” is based on a novel which ran in serial form in Cosmopolitan Magazine. It is based on the evils of fake spiritualism. Miss Brent is the former chorus girl In the picture who persuades Neil Hamilton, the fake spiritualist, to give up the false business after he brings grief to Miss Hill, a daughter of wealth. On Thursday the Majestic will present another big talkie, “Big Time,” a Fox Movietone drama of backstage life. Daphne Pollard, the celebrated comedienne of the screen, who enacts the role of Sybil, trainer for the seals, in “Big Time,” has had considerable experience with seals during her screen career which embraces no fewer than 30 comedies. On one occasion, while playing a role in “Run, Girl, Run,” at the Mack Sennet Studios, a seal bit. her on the leg and, since that time, she has kept all seals at their proper distance. Stepin Fetchit, the inimitable coloured comedian who made millions laugh in “The Ghost Talks,” and “The Fox Movietone Follies of 1929,” portrays the role of keeper of the seals in “Big Time,” and it requires little stretch of imagination to vision what this pair of fun makers do in this screen drama of backstage life, with its glamour, its heartbreaks and its joys. Lee Tracy, late star of “Broadway” in New York, and Mae Clarke, another stag 3 recruit from Broadway, enact the leading roles in this picture. Kenneth Hawks directed the transfer of Wallace Smith’s fast-moving story to the all-talking screen.