SHOULD MAKE HISTORY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 24

SHOULD MAKE HISTORY

“Juno and the Paycock,’* most recent of English talkers, leaves the strongest possible impressions on the mind. 'lt, is not so much that it is brilliant, but that it is so startlingly sincere, that its characters are unlike those shallow beings whom the studios

commonly represent, and so amazingly human, writes a London critic. Unless too sustained a diet of sac-charfne sweethearts, crying sentimentality unreal romance and false moral values has utterly perverted the | taste of filmgoers “Juno and the Pay- | cock” is going to make history in the ; cinemas; and even if the digestion of filmgoers be ruined by the diet they ; have had, there are enough thousands ! of people such as avoid the cinemas j who will clutch at the chance of seeI ing “Juno” again and again, j We have had to put up with a great | deal of vapid talk since dialogue be- ; came part of films: some of it was mercifully more or less incomprehensible American slang, but, with the exception of talkers like “The Doctor's Secret,” and those others based on some intelligently written novel or play, the dialogue we have had has been empty enough of eloquence, passion, humour or humanity. “Juno” is human life, made visible and audible, made more comprehensible and vivid by dramatic ability, but effective because of its truth. Mrs. Boyle and her shiftless, boasting husband and his ridiculous friend Joxer are no film stars nor are they the sw’eet, meaningless creatures who populate the usual film universe. Because they are human they have character. not merely characteristics; and \ for the same reason both comic and j tragic events fall naturally to them. 1 they react equally naturally, i It is to the eternal shame of the cinema and its masters that “Juno and the Paycock” stands out alone among | the talkers and can be matched for truth and humanity among the whole of the old silent films by but a handful of Chaplin comedies, half a dozen Continental pictures, and not more : American ones.