ROXY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 967, 9 May 1930, Page 14

ROXY

“THE 13TH CHAIR” “The 13th Chair,” at the Roxy Theatre, has taken the original stage play and its original star, Margaret Wycherly, and decked them in mysterious effects and fantastic ideas impossible within the limitations of the stage. Uncanny photographic effects, augmented with screams in the dark and a brooding sense of the mysterious in the dialogue, have made this talking picture an entirely new form of mystery entertainment. The story is laid in Calcutta, with the mysteries of old India contrasted vividly with the mysteries of modern spiritualism. Favourite tricks of mediums, such as spirit rapping and table tilting, circles and such adjuncts to the modern “black art" are exposed. In order to heighten the effect of other mysteries in which the wits of the detective in the play are baffled. The mysterious police inspector is played by Bela Lugosi, famous as the creator of the role of “Dracula" on the stage, and Conrad Xagel, Leila Hyams, Holmes Herbert. Mary Forbes and other screen and stage players have parts in the vivid mystery. Among the dramatic highlights are the grim duel of wits between Miss Wycherly, playing the medium, and Lugosi as the detective, when the medium frees her daughter from arrest as a murderess, and the uncanny denouement when, in the midst of the spirit seance, the hand of the murder victim points the way to the unsuspected culprit.