STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 April 1939, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

A SPECTACULAR PICTURE. There was a crowded house in the State Theatre on Saturday night when that brilliant picture. “Suez” was again shown, the audience being most appreciative. Loretta Young is excellent as the Empress Eugenie in “Suez.” She immediately appealed to the audience by the brilliance of her acting. What would Eugenie be without the Eugenie hat? Although the Empress wore many other stylos during her dazzling heyday and the tragic years following the disastrous invasion of her country by the Prussians, Miss Young was doomed from the start to the Eugenie hat. Miles Mander drapes a spit curl down his forehead for his interpretation of Disraeli. which was the most famous “trade-mark” of the statesman, and is called “Dizzy” throughout the film, a nickname that stayed with Disraeli until his death. Annabella fills her role most strikingly. Leon Ames plays Emperor Napoleon 111. by striking the poses of the great Bonaparte, uncle to Napoleon 111. From the day he set himself up as Emperor in 1852 Louis Napoleon liked to imitate the Bonaparte of Waterloo. Brandon Hurst appears as Franz Liszt with the famous Liszt bob, cut off nearly at his shoulders, Victor Vareoni, as Victor Hugo,

wears the poetic ties that the author liked so well. With the aid of skilful padding, J. Edward Bromberg became the pudgy Prince Said, after whom Port Said is named. It was an excellent presentation. Maurice Moscovitch is very much in character as Mohammed Ali, ruler of Egypt during the years de Lesseps was digging the canal. Tyrone Power as Ferdinand de Lesseps is somewhat more youthful than the historical character at the time he conceived his great enterprise, but the role played by the younger, more romantic Power will appeal to film audiences more than if it had been interpreted by an older man. Power gives a masterful presentation. “Suez” is a great historical picture with a splendid romantic story running through it. Besides the love story and the actual work on the canal, there is a tremendously exciting scene of a desert hurricane, a terrible simoom that nearly finishes the engineer and his dream. Ali the desert scenes are wonderfully photographed in faint sepia tinting, and there is a vivid and thrilling episode of Turkish soldiers blasting up a mountain with dynamite to impede the progress of the canal. Louis Napoleon's court is depicted with eye-opening splendour, and altogether the back--grounds and settings arc lavishly gorgeous in the extreme.