ENTERTAINMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 84, 26 August 1912, Page 6

ENTERTAINMENTS.

j EMPIRE PICTURES. The Empire Pictures continue to attract good houses, the Theatre being .•rpiin crowded on Saturday evening. T!it! bi-weekly change of programme tinkered in an interesting aeries of ,ilms, embracing various kinds' of subjects. In keeping with the reputation of the house, only films from the leading cinematograph companies were screened, the acting and staging being a feature in each picture. As usual, the dramatic gide was particularly strong. There were several excellent pictures, and it would be hard to particularise, but the palm should perhaps be awarded to a Lubin drama, "The Angel of the Slums." In it, all that is sweet, benign and sympathetic in human nature is shown up in the selfsacrificing work of a noble woman, who gives up pleasure and position in order to take up "slumming." Of course there is a plot in the piece, but it is merely incidental to the main and all-absorbing theme, the reclaiming of wrecked lives from the "submerged tenth." Undoubtedly the "Angel of the Slums" leaves a peculiarly beautiful impression behind it. "Fate's Interception" is one of those popular Mexican subjects, which weaves much of adventure and romance around the lives of two lovers an American mining engineer and a dark and winsome Mexican lass. How fate intercedes to the extent of saving the threat-'' ened life of the Americano is interesting in the extreme. The thoughtless neglect by a young husband of his wife in the hour of trouble is responsible for an extremely sentimental subject in the shape of "Love and Tears," The husband goes out for the evening, leaving his wife ill at home and too weakminded to resist for once the attractions of the ballroom, overstays his time by several hours, only to find himself, on his return, bereft of her whom he had once held, so dear. His belated repentance is powerfully portrayed. "Where the Money Went" depicts the temporary estrangement between husband and wife, on account of the latter becoming suspicious of a sudden -and unusually heavy depletion of her hubby's banking account. All's well that ends well, and in the end she finds out that the money went to purchase a charming suburban house—her husband's gift on her birthday. Much interest was centred in a film giving a detailed view of an across-the-Channel flight of one of Britain's aeroplanists, Miss Harriet Quimby, while an excellent animal study has to do with the habits and play of a number of frolicsome puppies. Of the comics, too much cannot be said of "Widow Jenkins' Admirers," -with its series of laughter-compelling situations; "The Bachelor's Waterloo" (a humorous though forceful lesson to the unwary); and "A Tenderfoot's Troubles" out West. "Hot Stuff" is an illustration of ) how a lover may be lost over such a ! seemingly simple operation as making toffey.