AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 310, 16 December 1936, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

Plaza Theatre. Stark Drama. Realistic power is the keynote of “The Prisoner of Shark Island,” show at the Plaza on Wednesday, Thursday' and Friday of this week. Telling the true story of Dr Samuel Alexander Mudd, the man who was unjustly’ imprisoned as one of .the Lincoln conspirators, the new picture is an amdzing document of man’s inhumanity to man. Warner Baxter, the star, play’s the title role of .the gentle backwoods physician who was sacrificed to a nation’s frenzy" in the furoTe followed the asssassination. Many of the actual conspirators are executed, but Baxter is saved for a more terrible fate—life imprisonment on the hellish Shark Island! Degrade!], tortured, frantic with worry over his wife, Gloria Stualrt, and their child, he attempts an escape through the shark-filled prison moat. He wins his freedom in one of the most harrowing scenes of the picture, only to be recaptured

King’s Theatre. Rafael Sabatini used the thrilling clays of the French Revolution as a background for his great love story, “The Nuptials of Corbal,” whjch Capitol Filins have now translated to the living screen under the title of “The Marriage ot Corbal.” Directed by' Carl Grune this Sabatini story’ will be screened at .the Stratford King’s Theatre finally to-night. The big cast is headed by l Nils Aster in the role of Deputy-Citizen Varennes, an unscrupulous young man who becomes fascinated with one of the condemned prisoners and rescues the young aristocrat almost from under the guillotine’s blade. She is rescued by the Marquis of Gorbal. Varennes locates Cleonie and issues an order that every unmarried aristocrat must marry a peasant within three days, an order calculated to dispose of Corbal. To describe more of this thrilling screen story would spoil the delights in stord. Hazel Terry’ gives a fine performance as Cleonie and Hugh Sinclair is the Marquis of Corbal. The popular Noah Beery is in the cast. A police persecution complex is said to be the motive,, scientifically analysed, of the murderer “X” dire pivotal figure in the new Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer thriller, ‘‘Mystery of Mr X,” to open at .the King’s to-morrow.