news reels have been as popular to Shanghai cinema patrons, apparently, as the Coronation " Alms Which ave been shown during the last and present week. The Grand wheatre's rst short glimpses, partly in Dufay colour, partly in bldek-and-white, were excellent" ahd whetted the appetite for more. More came in the Gaumont British lin, at greater length, at the Nanking and Metropole 'Theatres, In that film the street scones, particularly the Buckingham Palace episodes, were well given and algo seemed' that the ceremony within the Abbey. was satisfactorily covered, but the fuller exposition by Paramount at the Grand Theatre undoubledly provided the best spect= cle of all and, moreover, gave the Crowning in such admirable detail that, (o many people for the first time, the elaborate ritual was understand. able and coherent. Excellentas is the British Gaumont film, It ig necessary see the Paramoune reel to obtain really "complete picture of the Beqat event. Tt Is dificult to catch every movement in a pageant of such richness, Some eyes retain one impression, some another. 'The dignity the King and Queen, the former more certain In his stride than many the high officers around him, the latter shy' and charmingly modest, the race of the Jadiessiiwaiting they curtsied, the ease with which the 20th Century became merged in the mediaeval in the setting of the old Abbey were disinetly caught. The occasional "shots" of the crowds were HMuminating, To Shanghailanders, a3 the procession passed the hatched Nous Club at the corner of St. James! St. and Molt Mall, it was amusing to see a morning-coated, clean-shaven, monocled face letting itself go. in a most plebeian ecstasy "of cheering. The forest of periscopes at Marble Arch, the umbrellaed crowd at Buckingham Palace and the masses in. Tratalg Square also struck the eye. The cinema sense cannot lie dormant as sucha rival (0 Hollywood's most spectacular mood unfolds itsel¢ on the screen. Therefore It is not. perhaps irreverent to observe that the erilic Would vive the Queen Mother the palm for "stealing" the picture. Whether she was unconsciously betraying her majestic dignity toellowed long experience, intently watching her son with confident maternal brid ently supervising the decorum of the young princesses or curtsying to the King and Queen at the supreme moment of their Coronation, Queen Mary always seemed to be' exactly Fogistering the right tone. Her final, delayed, almost deprecatory yet, uraclous appearance in the family group on the Palace Balcony gave a Alling climax to a truly' memorable achiovement—that of the first Queen Mother to attend her son's Coronation In British history,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.