ALFREDTON TALKIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1939, Page 7

ALFREDTON TALKIES

TOMORROW’S PROGRAMME. “Souls at Sea,” that outstanding talking picture, which ran for six weeks in Wellington, will be shown at Alfredton tomorrow night. “Souls at Sea” is the motion picture treatment of the famous trial of “Nuggin” Taylor (Gary Cooper), sea captain of the “40’s,” who assumed command of the brig William Brown, when that ship caught fire in mid-Atlantic shortly after her master died. The William Brown was equipped with only two lifeboats and Taylor realised that he could never bring the entire ship’s company to safety in these frail craft. He ordered a trial to determine who should be permitted to go aboard the lifeboats and who should be ordered —at pistol point—to remain aboard and go to the bottom with the ill-fated vessel. He included himself among the survivors not because he wanted to save his life, he later told an Admiralty Court, but because he knew he was the only man who could bring the lifeboats safely through to land. There followed a trial which is now an epic among sea trials. The noted cast includes Gary Cooper, George Raft, Frances Dee, Harry Carey, Olympe Bradna, Henry Wilcoxson and Virginia Weidler (a talented child).