CURRENT FILMS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 79, 13 January 1949, Page 2

CURRENT FILMS

ST. JAMES THEATRE

Co-ordinating a story enacted by human characters with parallel sequences by animated art characters, Walt Disney’s “Song of the South” is the current attraction at the St. James Theatre.

The boy of the story (Bobby Driscoll) feels neglected and outside the affection of liis parents (Ruth Warrick and Erie Rolf). They are troubled when the husband, an Atlanta newspaper editor, politically affronts certain powerful interests, and the pair’s social life suffers in consequence. The boy is left with his mother at the grandmother’s plantation, while the father returns to the city to fight for his professional life. The lad is bewildered by all this emotional disturbance. He starts to run away. * Uncle Remus (James Baskett) halts him and composes his mind and heart with amusing but also appropriate fables wherein the talking animals face similar problems. With the aid of a little neighbour girl (Luana Patten) who brings the boy comradeship and esteem, Uncle Remus sets his feet toward home again. The family reunion comes after the lad has been attacked by a bull and lies near death. The youngster’s salvage from danger and fear and rebellion is the 'substance of the comedy-drama into which the pictorial fables are blended.