BATTLE OF THE SOMME.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1916, Page 2

BATTLE OF THE SOMME.

'■THE BIG 'PUSH" IN PICTURES. Only personal acquaintance with modem war \wll strip away the last popular delusions about it", and.reveal -wholly tlie horror, the dirt, the nivriad terrors that begin as soon as the first shots ar» lired. Vet it is only an understanding of these almost inconceivable, things tiuu makes it possible to understand the real greatness of the magnilicen.e oi war and of soldiers. Very'little of the truth can lie adequately got from tfce written or spoken word; but In > moving picture goes far towards tel'mtlie truth. When the War Office, tier." iiio a historical record of a great eve.it, sent '.cinematograph operators to the' Somme battlefield, it also sent the war home to the hearts of British people ill a new and most powerful way Throughout England the official picture o, the '-Big Push" have created nothing ess than a sensation; and no time has been lost in bringing them also to New Zealand. They were screened for the time at Everybody's Theatre last night, and the big building was crowded with spectators, who .were, for the ■most part, too deeply impressed to appk'.'u!.

A great variety /of subjects is dinplayed in tins remarkable war study; but it is questionable whether, after all the most impressive sections are not tliose which show the hosts of infantry famous now all of thein, and sally scattered most —gathered in village', for instruction, or swinging along country roads towards the front to take part in the great attack, smiling and waving helmets, as if pretty girls and not German gunners waited for them.

The films show the 'preliminary shelling of the enemy trenches, and the guns, great and small, that shared in the work of- destruction. Trench mortars, field artillery, heavy guns (4.j and fO-pounders), and howitzers of six, eight, liine-point-two, twelve, and fiftain inches calibre, are all shown in action Vith a clearness that would have trought joy *to the heart of a German spy twelve months ago. Then the effect) of this lire are displayed in vivid views of the enemy's lines during the shelling, for a. few brief moments the pitturi rouses an indescribable thflK as a section of trench is subjected to intense shell-fire, the bursts folknviijg each other too rapidly for the eye to catch them all. The shelling of i"ie German lines is illustrated also in other parts of t!i» film, when at, some distance there can fie seen the long and unbroken line of smoke, dotted with new -bursts, which means the endless "plastering" of the German positions Throughout the picture the shelling seems a singularly one-sided business, for very little is seen of the enemy's fire. A sensational incident in the -mashing of the German trenches is the firing of a great mine, which makes a big area of ground rise in a bulge like a gigantic black bulibli before it bursts and sends skywards a vast bulk of black earth and smoke.

The climax of the picture, of course, Is the actual attack, which takes p!ac> with dramatic swiftness. A line o: men. representative of others on stretch of sixteen miles, is seen to sprir.i* over the parapet of their trench and more off. leaving almost on the instant t.'.o of their number lying o;i tile projjiul. This was the or t.'se greilV* advance yet made on the West front since the German? made their trenches. Thereafter the picture h terrible i:i jts story. The dead are shown as little as may be; but a host of ivoumted —friends and foes—are s»e,\ and the sacrifices of war tints pictured cannot readily be forgotten. fireat numkr, of O'criiuii! prisoners weiv secured by the British, and the state of liia.iy of these men, with their nerves sheltered. and obv-ijiu-Jy in a state aliswi of dementia, due to the terrific be v.* hardinent to which thev had l>«eu ruhiected, is shown with terrible plainness. It is ill this part of the picture, when the price of victory—so much more easily paid than the price of .defeat—-

is dearly ■semi, that the; spectator-3. grip something of the wholesome truth about the war. These'picture of the Battle of the Somme are a real, and valuable contribution to the nation's knowledge, ami a powerful spur to national effort. in addition to the war films, the programme contains other subjects of much interest. The same pictures will be shown at Everybody's again to-night and to-mor-row night. There will .ilso be matinee performances to-day and to-morrow, at IX).