"WELCOME DANGER," 100 P.C. TALKIE, MAJESTIC, TO-NIGHT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 55, 5 April 1930, Page 2

"WELCOME DANGER," 100 P.C. TALKIE, MAJESTIC, TO-NIGHT.

Harold Lloyd, bespectacled king of laught-er. on the silent screen, bas at last made a talkie and such a talkie that its fame will live for ever, whenever conversations of the future turn towards comedy as portrayed through the talkie vehicle. By name, "Welcome Danger," it is a Paramount super x-elease and if its succcesses elsewhere in the Dominion are anything to go by, it will take Napier by storm. "Welcome Danger" opens its Napier season at the popular Majestic this (Saturday) evening. Harold's admirers in Napier — and they are legion — have long been desirous of seemg their favourite in a picture in which his inane actions are accompanied by the sound of his voice, and they have at last got what they desired. Taking a melodramatic premise and turning it into humour is no new trick for Harold Lloyd. Yet never before has he done it with the finesse he exhibits in his latest Paramount release. "Welcome Danger" relates a story, that with hut a few twists, could have been developed into a thriller of the first water. Lloyd retains the thrill elements, the mystery and the romance of the drama, but adds laugh after laugh to the story hy little twists of his own. "Welcome Danger" relates the experiences of a boy whose avoeation is botany, and who suddenly finds himself a detective in underground Chinatown trying to outwit wily Chinamen who have baffled the police of San Francisco. Lloyd portrays the son of a famous Golden Gate police officer, who passes on, aBsuming he has left the world a legacy in the form of a great law-enforcing son. Harold prefers toying with flowers to chasing law breakers, hut when his father's old friends call on him for assistance, he readily assents, with results that are liighly humorous for the audience. The picture has an amazing "fade out." To divulge its nature would he to rob an audience of an nnusual picture treat, and to uncover one of the funniest situations in the picture. Suffice it to say, that it was made a risk of limb, both for Mr Lloyd and his new leading lady, Barbara Kent. Tn the actal making, it had a "kick," and it lost nothiug in its ti-ansference to the screen. Lloyd refrained for some months from announcing his leap into the field of sound and dialogue until he was thoroughly couvinced that he could use the new adjuncts of entertainment withont handicapping his aetion on the screen. Once satisfied that he could maintain the same pace, he set in silent pictures, the comedian went at production with a vigour. and "Welcome Danger" sets a mark for all other productions to shoot at in the future. At no time has Lloyd sacrificed action for dialogue. fyut ori the other hand he has used talk to materially speed up the relating of his story, while sound has considerably enhanced the laugh of many "gags."