ENTERTAINMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 261, 14 April 1915, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS.

"WITHIN TEE LAW." This successful drama of J. C. Williamson's Ltd., will bo singed at Now Ply mouth on Thursday next, April 15th, in (lie Theatre Royal, and is a well constructed play, clever in a literary sense and touching questions which lie beneath the tangled problem of crime. Tlic story is unusual. Mary Turner is a shop girl in a big American department store, the proprietor of which gives generously of his money to this charity and that, but does not pay bis female employees enough to enable them to live decently. jHe pays them as much as tlie other j houses, and excellent man though he is |in many respects, he doesn't enquire j whether they can live konestly and vir-

j tuously an what they receive, and he is very indignant when some of them steal. Stolen articles were found in Mary Turner's possession and she was I made an example of to warn tha other*. That would have been justified had she been guilty, but she was not. Before she is removed to serve a term of three years' imprisonment, she.has an interview with her employer and tells him in impassioned touching words whv poor underpaid girls go wrong. Her "appeal is in vain, and changing her tone she declares she will make him pay for the wrong he has done her. She serves her sentence and on her release attempts io make an honest living, but the police tollow her everywhere and she is con-

, stantly dismissed. In the hard college ) of persecution she learns how much iniv be done so long a, it j, "within the law. She becomes rich and with money and brains manages to keep the police at bay. Then she determines to make her former employer Edward Gilder pay the debt she has recorded against him. Her first step was to fascinate his son j Richard and then to marrv him. She tells the father whv she has done this thing, and also tells the son she has no love for him. Here she misjudged imr own heart. A burglary at Edward Oilders house involves the whole gang of crooks; here also a murder takes place committed with the maxim silencer. The ' concluding portion of the play illu*. trates the methods of the New York police in the treatment of persons cornins; into their power. There is something of the 'Third Degree" about the pkv in this act, though of a milder character than in the play of that name. Eventuallv Joe Oarson, a forger, and one of the, 'crooks" and with a secret love for Mary, saves the situation bv nobly confessing the truth of the crime, and thereby saving Mary from further persecution. But to give too much of the story here would rob the first night of its intense expectation which lias been the success the world over of this tcmarkable play. The box plan is on view at Collier's, where seats may be reserved without extra charge.

EMPIRE PICTURES. A Keystone comedy is always a big draw at a picture theatre, and the iii- ; elusion of "Those Love Pangs" on the ' new programme at the Empire last night resulted in a large attendance. Charles Chaplin, who Js probably the most popular performer in the moving picture world at the present time, is featured in the comedy.- His role, is that of an intruder into other people's love affairs. For a time he avoids trouble. and actually succeeds in carrying on a flirtation with two girls whose lovers have been violently handled by Chanlin himself. The story ends in a' house of amusement, where Chaplin is desert'd by the girls and discovered by the men. 1 In the free fight which follows. Ch.vnlin , is outnumbered and defeated. The film j is almost a continuous record - ' humorj ous situations with the Ke~,i<:--« cnmc . dian acting in his very best style, and jas a laughter-producer' it compares ivir<> ! than favorably with the many good ones already produced by the same company. Topical events of much interest are to ho seen in the latest edition of the Pathe Gazette. A fine dramatic, war romance is "The Battle," though the actual war scenes in this film pale into insignificance when compared with the topical war views being screened from week. "Memories of Men's Souls" is a Vitagraph drama suggested by the popular fallacy that a shattered romance prevents a man from being successful in business. The plot is ouite unusual, and the acting something above the ordinary. Other items, on the programme are "Film Favorites," a comedy in which Miss Florence Turner impersonates well-known picture artists: Santa Catabna Island," a Keystone scenic; "The Boomerang Swindle'" Tubin drama; "In a Prohibition Town " nndaPiit!,eco,orintOT '