" SECOND FIDDLE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 247, 19 October 1939, Page 11

" SECOND FIDDLE."

SONJA HENIE—TYRONE POWER Latest picture to gather great music, story and stars in the style made famous by "Alexander's Ragtime Band" is Irving Berlin's "Second Fiddle," which to-morrow is scheduled to begin an Auckland season at the Plaza Theatre. The production stars ice-skating Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power, features Rudy Vallee and Edna May Oliver, and introduces a new screen personality in the person of lovely Mary Hcaly.

Six new songs from the facile pen of Irving Berlin highlight the production, and a feature that is expected to make the film memorable is the introduction of the attractive new dance "Back to Back." In this film, blonde Sonja appears for the first time with a skating partner, young Stewart Reburn, and presents spectacular tropical dances —the rhumba and the tango—on ice.

The film presents an interesting dramatic tale of Hollywood's search to find a girl for the leading role in a picturisation of a famous novel. As a Minnesota school teacher Sonja is given a test. She passes with honours, and when Tyrone Power, as the studio publicity man, flies out to collect her the fun begins when Hollywood racks its brains for more and more "build-ups" for the new sensation.

Darryl F. Zanuek again proves himself a master in the production of films of this type. His director, too. is no novice in this field, for Stanley Lanfield directed "Thin Ice." "Wake Up and Live," and "Sing, Baby, Sing."