NORMA SHEARER'S NEW COMEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1932, Page 3

NORMA SHEARER'S NEW COMEDY.

"PRIVATE LIVES" AT ST. JAMES'. The screen version of "Private Lives," Noel Coward's smart comedy, will open to-morrow at the St. James' Theatre. Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery are co-starred, while the supporting roles are filled by Reginald Denny, Una Merkel, Jean Hersholt and George Davis. This delicious farce, which depends almost as much for its humour on its amusing dialogue as its riotous action, concerns the diverting complications which arise when a divorced couple make another attempt at marriage with fresh partners and find themselves sharing adjoining suites 011 their second honeymoons. A good share of the action is taken up in fights between the respective husbands and spouses. These are by 110 means restricted to verbal battle, and as a consequence patrons will be treated to the unusual sight of seeing Miss Shearer and Montgomery wrestling with each other, rolling round tlie floor, and hitting caeh other over the head with gramophone records. Miss Merkel and Denny, likewise, are given opportunities at the gentle art of hurling crockery as well as the most appalling epithets. The whole tiling is done in the engaging satirical vein which Noel Coward made famous. The production was directed by Sidney Franklin, who lias achieved a unique success in transposing stage plays to the screen, his last success having been the Alfred Lunt-Lynn Fontannc hit, "The Guardsman."

Norma Shearer was born in Montreal, Canada, and entered film# as an extra in 1920. She rose to stardom after making "Hie Secretary," and repeated the success of her silent pictures in talkies.i