RICHARD BARTHELMESS' 100 PER CENT TALKIE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 284, 4 January 1930, Page 2

RICHARD BARTHELMESS' 100 PER CENT TALKIE.

"Drag," tlie new First NationalVitaphone feature starring Ilichard Barthelniess, which opens to-night at the Gaiety De Luxe for a limited season of tiiree night and three afternoon performances is tlie second Vitaphon© feature with dialogue and sound in which Barthelniess has appeared. The first was "Weary River," ivhicti became an instantaneous hit throughout the country and is still breaking records everywhere. It tboroughly established Barthelniess as a speaking star of the first rank and made him one of the most hrilliant boxoffice stars on tlie cinema firmament. "Drag" presents tlie star in a drarnatic narrative concerning a young, ambitious newspaperman wjio goes ,to a small town to edit the' local vveeklv paper. While there he falls in love with a girl and after marrying lier finds liimself supporting a wliole family of parasitic "in-laws." He composes a musical show calied "The Love Prince" for the local Women's Guild; its success encourages him to go to New York, sell his play, and lind that happiness which so elucted him in the small town. When William Dudley Pelley wrote the novel, "Drag" from which Richard Barthelniess' latest First National starring picture has been adapted, he hased it upon the Jife of I>eople whom he had known in cliild'hood and youth. Many of the charaeters and situations were simply transt'erred to Mr Pelley's pages from the streets of the little town wliere the eye of the autlior liad noted and remembered them. The central theme o. the stoi-y — the dragging down of an ambitious young man who has to take care of too many "in-laws"- — was sug-

gested hy a case with which Mr Pelley was persouallv acquainted. "Drag" ;s generally regarded as the hest of Mr Pelley's novels, and tlie Barthelmess picture has been produced with faitht'ul adherence to tlie spirit and atmosphere of the original, and is told >n 100 per cent nlT-tnlking and singing. The "short" subjects include a granj array of the highest mcrit in all-tnlk-ing-singing items. Tlie famous Italian tenor of tlie Grand Metropolitan Opera Co., De Lucca, will be lieard in tlie "Figaro Song," reallv a wonderful number. Thomas and Sagal, a vcrv cbarming pair, in a picturesque setting, sings "Sweetjieart." Bruce Bairnsfather, tells you all about "Old Bill" during the course of drnwings of this famous, Great War clmracter, while Pathe Sound News and Audio Review, together with a speciaj number of the famous flight of the Graf Zeppelin, completes another of those greater entertainments always witpessed at the favourite rendezvous of tnlkie entertainment. Seats may be reserved by ringing 'phone 3809, Patrons nre advised to book or be early.