Cinema Reviews

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21146, 23 April 1934, Page 5

Cinema Reviews

THEATRE ROYAL

"THE DEVIL TO PAY" Ronald Coiman is a delightful ne'er-do-well, and his part in "The Devil to Pay," which opened a season at the Theatre Royal, on Saturday, is probably one of the best he has ever played. As the ''worthless" son of a vtrv rich man. spoiled and indulged to the limit of the cheque-book, lie docs everything that is wrong and noThing that is right. Ho sells the home his father gave him in South Africa, he comes back to London penniless and unrepentant, he wheedles more money from a long-suffering parent, and he puts it all on the Derby. And yet one would not dream of disputing the justice of all this; one must applaud the killing of the fatted calf for such a pleasant prodigal. Frederick Lonsdale's play is well cared for in such hands. The film is a most successful adaptation of a typically English comedy. The situations are neat: and well-arranged, the dialogue is much more subtle than that of the usual films of this type, and the supporting members of the cast are all well I chosen. This applies particularly to a most attractive little terrier.

"Good-bye, Again," the first film on the programme, is an American sophisticated comedy of more than average merit. All the work falls on Warren Williams, who plays the part, of a popular author encumbered with many female hangers-on. He loves and laughs most pleasantly, until he Tmds himself lather too deeply compromised with another man's wife to avoid the attentions of her well-meaning relatives and her mild-eyed husband. The comedy is harsh and at limes forced, but Williams is graceful enough to carry it o(T with an air. Joan Blondcll and Genevieve Tobin, his secretary and his lover respectively, both have amusing parts. They are both beautiful—in the American manner —and that is probably all that is required of them in a film which certainly has many amusing situations and some clever dialogue.

The programme opens brightly with ii news-reel showing the latest method of fishing—from the air. Sharks are hooked, played, and hauled several hundred feet to the cabin of the blimp in a most spectacular manner. This film also shows some of the Waitangi celebration scenes, a few hakas, and some poi dances. To the outsider who sees this film New Zealand must seem a savage land.

PLAZA "I ADORE YOU" ••I \dorc You," which was screened at tlie Plaza on Saturday evening, had in it all the ingredients of firstHa«s musical comedy, which was what It purported to be. The costuming and settings were lavishly done, he music was as good as anything thin the screen has released, and the acthu' was good. Everything was there that a successful musical show needs. The music department was m t.ui hands of Carroll Gibbons and h s Savov Orpheans. an internat.onallvknown band whose recordings ac. popular in this country. The U pheans' music was, as .mcritioncd before as good as anything that the screen has vet produced, and a good deal better 'than most. U was in the main the clear-cut type of rhythm that manv people find so attractive in English bands when contrasted with the rather flamboyant effects of mos, American combinations. . At his hand the director evidently had as much in the way of dressing, in its broadest sense, as he could possiblv want, and he made fair use of it. " The scenes were all excellently got up, and the number of novelty ballets was a taking feature of the show. The main songs were fair without being outstanding, and the acting of all those in the cast was sound.

With so much to assist it. it seems incredible that "I Adore You"' should not have been a hit, but it was not. It is hard to say why, except that the impression of speed, of vivid movement from scene to scene which American producers achieve without any seeming effort, was not there. It was a show with occasional bright patches, but it may not be remembered for long. The short features, except for one quite unnecessary musical review. were excellent and well varied. There was an Australian newsreel, which was good and also amusing, a clever scries of band selections from Runenoff and his orchestra, and a Mickey the Mouse film, in which that star was as good as ever.

REGENT

"I LIKE IT TtfAT WAY" if it follows somewhat conventional lines, the musical comedy. "I Like it That Way," which was fhown at the Regent Theatre for the first time on Saturday, is still an entertaining piece with a good deal of colour and some pleasant tunes. The principal players, Gloria Stuart and Roger Pry or, are among the younger stars of the day, but they act naturally, and in the case of Miss Stuart, look extremely well. Roger Pryor made his debut in "Moonlight and Pretzels," one of last year's musical comedy successes. In this play he is a product of a surefire school of salesmanship, smart enough, it seems, in selling life insurance, but not so smart when he tries to win a girl by the same tactics. His dreams fade when she is revealed as a night-club actress; but she is able to prove her womanly qualities by saving his sister from an amorous blackguard and by supporting her own blinded brother. As the story unfolds ample opportunity is found for singing and dancing, night club scenes, and other revels. The whole picture is lively, and it has some bright dialogue. The principals act well and are adequately supported by Ma*rian Marsh, Shirley Grey, and Onslow Stevens. There were a good many golfers at the theatre on Saturday night to see the first of a new series of "instruction" films by Bobby Jones called "How to Break 90." This was concerned wholly with the golfing grip. It is an ably directed short, and the use of dark backgrounds and black-and-white clothes by the player makes his strokes and instructions admirably; clear. The cast includes Joe E. Brown. I "Candv House," n clever cartoon ofj ■the "doings of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which shows signs of the influence. uf Walt Disney. It. is a bright little fairy j story—one of the best cartoons apart, from Mickey I he Mouse and the Silly Symphonies' that have been presented for some time. The supporting programme included also a British Paramount News, a collection of extraordinary and bizarre happenings under the title "Strange as it Seems," and an unusually good musical number, featuring a Castilian xylophone band.

CIVIC "MURDER AT COVENT GARDEN" Whoever sees a detective film or reads a detective novel expects to be kept, guessing, for mystification is an essential quality of this form of story. "The Murder at Covenv. Garden," at the Civic Theatre this week, is a good piece of mystification. At the outset it is revealed that the story is about I diamonds stolen in Africa and smuggled i into England. Then the complications I begin. There is a man who acts like i .-> detective, but who is really a crimj inal watching the master-crook, who is [ suspected of double-dealing; there are I two real detectives, the one so skilful that; he is taken for a criminal, and the other simple and blundering, so that he is knocked on the head early in the piece, and looks like providing the body necessary for a murder story (he turns up again, however, in the last scene); there is a girl who might be mixed up with the gang, but who is really assisting her "detective brother, and who falls in love with the other detective, and, of course, there is a hcavy-jowled master-crook. To cap it all the last part, of the storv is set in a burning building, with the last-min-' utc rescues of the heroine and of the detective with the diamonds in his pocket. This story is presented in a fashion that prevents anyone from foreseeing the end, and, although it. is puzzling, it is always interesting. An outstanding scene is at an auction of fruit, where the bogus detective and the two real detectives watch one another. George Ctirzon, as the skilful detective, reveal?; an easy and graceful, manner; Dennis Neilson Terry is the straightforward, easily hoodwinked detective. and Helen Osmond is the heroine. But what: is remembered most of all is the slow gorilla's bulk of Fred Pease, as the master-crook's black servant, lie is the original ''bogey man" of childhood drearns, made flabby, and with frightened evps.

~A n -^ lJ . slra 'inn short about "Wriggly Things" is well done, but is sometimes unpleasant tc look at.

LIBERTY

DOUBLE FEATURE PROGRAMME

The Liberty Theatre, which has been closed for renovation and redecoration, reopened on Saturday. The appearance of the interior of the theatre lias been greatly improved and the effect is smart and attractive. The redecorated theatre and the double feature programme attracted so manv people that the "House Full" notice was hung out well before eight o'clock. Jack Holt and Fay Wray are the stars of "Master of Men," a'picture in which the photography is excellent and the acting good. It is a picture which exactly suits Holt's temperament and he has made the most of the opportunities which come his way. It would, indeed, be hard to find" an actor who could better fill a part of this particular type. He has the right face, so determined at times that it becomes ruthless, the right voice and manner, and the right actions. The picture has for a background the New York stock exchange in its most hectic boom days and the crash which followed these conditions. Holt is shown as an ambitious worker in a steel mill who makes money and gains a high place in the company only to lose them through the scheming of his wife. Fay Wray is her usual attractive self in the part of the wife who, realising that her husband is sacrificing everything to his own greed, deliberately ruins him. He is thus forced to see that there are other things in life than money.

The other picture. "Hell and High Water." is as unusual as its name and provides an amusing mixture of drama and romance. Richard Arlen, a popular actor, is shown as a man who dislikes women to such an extent that he declares: "Women are poison and I don't intend to commit suicide by taking one." The chances of such a man falling in love with a girl who is a professed man-hater are remote, but the picture shows that it is possible, and shows it in a clever and amusing way. The other leading part is taken by Judith Allen, who gives a skilful interpretation.

CRYSTAL I'ALACE

THK FOUR MARX BROTHERS Why if. should be funny to see Harpo Marx produce a pair of scissors from tiis' belt and snip the tails off a respectable man's coat, or to see Groucho Mark perform a scandalous dance before the cabinet meeting over which he is presiding nobody knows The fact remains, though, that it is funny—exceedingly funny. The four Marx brothers, Harpo, Groucho, Chico, and Zeppo. whose latest film, "Duck Soup," is now being shown at the Crystal Palace, have given to the cinema a form of humour so completely unlike anything that the stage can give or which anyone else in the cinema has given that it defiies reason and logic and explanation. "Duck Soup," in contrast to most of the earlier Marx Brothers' films, has a plot. True, it is not much of a plot, but most of the best scenes have nothing to do with it and there is always the uneasy feeling that there might be more of those scenes, if it was not necessary to spend time developing the story. Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) is appointed administrator of Freedonia; the ambassador of Sylvania, a neighbouring country, is seeking to stir up a revolution in Freej donia, and lie employs Harpo and Chico to spy on Groucho and his private secretary, Zeppo. Finally, the two countries go to war and Freedonia is victorious. Gruocho, with moustache and cigar complete, does the most amazing irrelevant things with the utmost seriousness; Harpo, dumb as ever, plays extraordinary pranks with a gleam of idiotic glee in his eyes; Chico sells peanuts and hardly ever stops talking, all with the same seriousness as Groucho; in contrast to their utter idiocy i s the sane and normal figure of Zeppo in the background. Several scenes stand out. There is, for example, the one in which Chico and Harpo, in partnership at the peanut stall, hopelessly outwit and bamboozle the proprietor of a neighbouring stall; best of all, perhaps, is the one in which Harpo and Chico dress up as Groucho, Groucho himself appears, and three Grouchos chase each other round the house in which Frecdonia's war plans are concealed. Harpo sees in a frame what he thinks at first is a huge mirror. After a moment he begins to wonder whether there is a mirror there at all and performs wonderful antics in front of it, all of which are faithfully copied by the figure on the other side, who turns out to be Chico, similarly bewildered, on the other side of an open doorway. Finally, there are the battle scenes— the four brothers besieged in an old farmhouse and broadcasting for help.

It is all sheer nonsense from beginning to end and it is all amazingly funny. One is suddenly transported into the midst of a group of harmless lunatics, who obviously have strong reason for every idiot "act they perform, and who act with the utmost

seriousness, but who live and reason on basis quite divorced from the world of everyday. You could never doubt that Harpo has a perfectly sound reason for cutting the tails off persons' coats, for example, and the existence of this reason only makes his behaviour the more comic. The programme as a whole is an excellent one, the supports, in their way, being as good as the feature picture. "Flying Gloves," a collection from old news-reels of famous fights and of sport of all kinds, is interesting; there is a Crazy-Kat cartoon of merit; a very topical news-reel, and a miniature variety show.

MAJESTIC

''ORIENT EXPRESS" Filled with tense drama and vivid romance, and filmed against a rich background, "Orient Express," based upon Graham Greene's best-selling novel, will open at the Majestic Theatre to-day. The splendid characterisations of the principals, together with the swiftly-moving suspense, romance, and intrigue, which bring the picture to an exciting climax, should hold the audience from beginning to end. "Orient Express" is a story ofi seven people who meet on board a ] train from Ostend to Constantinople. Each one has his own ambition and goal in life, but at the end of their journey they find the 1 " lives completely changed. Heather Angel and; Norman Foster have ■ the romantic , leads. i A particularly interesting film of j the invitation trotting match at Ad-1 dington is also on this programme. Walla Walla and Harold Logan are shown fighting out the finish, and also splendid views of the huge crowd I present. j Box plans are at the D.I.C. j TIVOLI I "A CUCKOO IN THE NEST" j Ralph Lynn has already proved many j times how easy it is to be absurdly j funny, but perhaps never before has j he been so ridiculous as he is in "A j Cuckoo in the Nest," the GaumontBritish production of Ben Travers' farcical comedy, which began its second j week at the Tivoli Theatre on Satur-1 day. Tom Walls will be with him again, to lend wickedness to Lynn's horrified innocence. As for Ralph Lynn, if there were nothing else in the picture except Ralph doing his original and painstaking best to curl up and go to sleep under a washstand. it would be worth ! paying to see. And part of that par- j ticular bit of fun is the outrageous '< manner in which Yvonne Arnaud, cos-j ily installed in a comfortable bed. ' laughs at his struggles. She, by the j way, re-enacts Margaret Hickett, the : role she played so brilliantly in the \ original stage farce while the veteran i actress, Mary Brough, recreates her S part of Mrs Spoker, the acidulous and suspicious landlady of the village inn at Maiden Blotton. She has ample scope for delineating this narrowminded, highly -'proper" old party and makes an important contribution to the success of the picture. Other fine comedy parts are given by Roger Livesey as Alfred the barman; Robertson Hare as Rev. Slolely-Jones, and Grace Edwin as the nagging Mrs Bone.