AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 June 1916, Page 6

AMUSEMENTS.

EMPIRE PICTURE PALACE. For variety, interest and powerful plots, the new programme shown at the Empire Picture Palace last night is hard to beat. It is particularly strong in topical and scenic films, and under llieso headings were "Across Southern Tndia," beautifully photographed. "From Trench to Trench" gives some unusual war pictures, whilst the Australian Gazette illustrates recent happenings on the great Island Continent. Then again there is an Edison comedy-cartoon film disf.nised under the name of "Tom the' Tamer.'' Two particularly strong dramas are shown. One is devoted to exposing the fallacious theory that "once a crook, always a crook," and that the prison •eaves a stain that can never be removed. \ How two prisoners reformed and made good, and how unjust suspicions were removed are here vividly portrayed. A narrow-minded lawyer marries a girl, ignorant that she has served a term of imprisonment. One of his servants runs away, with some money, and the police being called in •recognise the wife as an ex-convict and suspect lier of the tlieft. However, the lawyer learns who the real thief was, but his experience had broadened his views and everything ends happily. The other drama, equally powerful, shows how the adoption of a little abandoned infant changed the mode of a woman's life, and how later the woman was the means of uniting father and child. The humorous items are good, perhaps the best being "Love, Pepper and Sweets," a Pokes and Jabs effort with a thousand laughs. The orchestral music throughout was greatly - appreciated. The same programme will be repeated again to-night and to-inorow night.

THEATRE ROYAL PICTURES. Patrons of this popular picture house can always rely on good programmes. To-night the management will present what is claimed to be one of the most dramatic and artistic detective stories yet released, wbicb bears the title of "A Dead Man's Keys." It is said to be a truly wonderful picture, being invested with remarkable power. In brief the plot takes place in a warehouse where the chief clerk, who is in, need of money, steals the. key -of the safe from his employer and has a duplicate made. Before rifling the safe he shoots his employer dead with a silent revolver. An assistant, wbo is in disgrace with the murdered man, finds the body and picks up the revolver, with the result that he is charged with the crime. How tbe chief clerk's guilt is discovered by mean? of a thumb-print left on the key-maker's wax is powerfullv told. Supporting pictures comprise "Willi the Allied Troops at Salonika," wlii'li is intensely interesting; the "Topical War Budget" records the world's latest happenings; Helen Gibson is featured in "Crossed Wires," a railroad romance of the "Hazards of Helen" series. Helen essays some astonishing feats, including the leap from a racing motor car on to a speeding train. The programme contains some excellent fun makers, "What Did He Whisper'' (Vitagraph), "Xo Smoking" (Lubin),and "Love, Mumps and Bumps," a Beauty comedy in which little things like mumps and measels cannot stop Cupid from creating courtships, and incidentally much fun for the onlooker. Last, out by no means least, comes "As the Crow Flies," the ninth instalment of the popular serial story, "The Trey o' Hearts."