STAGE COMEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 23, 28 January 1937, Page 8

STAGE COMEDY.

NEW FILM AT THE REGENT.

Conceded to be one of. the great comedy successes of the past ten years, the play, "Three Men on a Horse." which is now in its third year on Broadway and is being played on the stages of six other countries, has been made into a film and will have its New Zealand premiere at the Regent Theatre to-morrow.

Erwin (pronounced "Oiwin") Trowbridge, the greeting-card poet, who :s expertly played in the film by Frank McHugh, has attained the stature that comes to astajre character of world-wide lame and success. Yet Erwin'e success prestige made him rather a problem to the film producers. The cinema presented possibilities for expanding his talent as a poet and his uncanny powers to divine the speed of horses. But therein lay danger. 'The slightest alteration might impair Erwin's magic, hilariously tested at so many box offices. Very wisely the producers have left him just as he appeared in the play.

The humour of the piece lies in the poet's uncanny ability to pick winners. The \*hole Ftory centres around the joys and sorrows the gift brines in its train. With the support of that seasoned campaigner Joan Blnndell. Carol Hughes, who plays his wife. Allen Jenkins and Sain Levene, McHugh should manage to make "Three Men on n Horse"' one of the big comedies of the screen season.