STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 934, 29 March 1930, Page 15

STRAND

“THE LOVE PARADE” The long-awaited Auckland season of tlio musical operetta, “The Love Parade’’ commences today at the Strand Theatre. Unlike its predecessors which have been seen on the audible screen, “The Love Parade,” which is Maurice •Chevalier’s second starring picture for Paramount, is an original operetta, conceived and written for the new technique of the talking screen. Fully understanding the tremendous effectiveness of the camera when imaginatively applied to song and dialogue, a camera whose sweep and action brings out the full effect which I audible screen entertainment is capI able of, Ernst Lubitsch, the famous i German director, was allowed full S power to experiment and make all changes necessary to accomplish these ends.

The result. of course, is a truly distinctive picture: a picture in which rich flowing humour, tuneful melodies, romance and much beauty are blended into a delightful unit, of w h i c li camera action is the underlying mot.f. Tlio success of this new technique rests, however, in the fact that the

technique never lor a single sequence rises above the logical and natural fiction of the pictures itself. Favourable audience reaction is merely gained through the medium of its entertainment and that is song, dance and romance of a new and glorious pattern. In “The Love Parade.” Chevalier sings several engaging songs, featuring “My Love Parade,” “Anything to I Please the Queen,” “Nobody’s Using It | Now” and “Paris Stay the Same.” And ( to make matters complete, he spends ; considerable time flattering, flirting | and finally falling in love with his beautiful leading lady, Jeanette MacDonald, who is ideally cast as the young, beatuiful and unmarried Queen of Sylvania. And the Queen, rightly enough, finds it impossible to resist the dashing Chevalier, whose amorous adventures are the gossip of the kingdom. In a delightful, sophisticated manner, interspersed with gorgeous comedy and set against a background !of great beauty, this romance of Chevalier and his Queen is a rare bit i of entertainment as yet unequalled on the talking screen.

! Miss MacDonald as Chevalier’s lead- ! ing lady proves to be an excellent j choice. A former star of several I Broadway musical comedies, this comely young actress, besides being easy to look at, reveals an unusually line singing voice. Some of the songs featured by Miss MacDonald are “My Dream Lover” and several of the songs also sung by Chevalier. In the supporting cast are Lupino i Lane and Lillian Roth, cast in comedy roles, and singing a novelty number called 'Let’s Be Commin.” Others in the cast include Eugene Pallette, Lionel Belmore and Albert Roccardi. In addition to “The Love Parade” the Strand’s programme includes several short talkie features.

Bradley King. one of the talking screen’s outstanding women scenario writers, has been signed to a long-term contract by Fox Films, and given as her first assignment the preparation of the script and dialogue of "Road House,” from the story by Philip Hum. Miss King, who has been writing stories ever since she left the Convent, ol’ the Sacred Heart at Albany, New York, recently has done dialogue and scenarios for "Anna Christie,” “Weary River,” “Drag,” “Young Nowheres,” and “Son of the Gods.”