CITY THEATRES

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23918, 9 April 1943, Page 3

CITY THEATRES

AVON

“THE COURTSHIP OF ANDY HARDY”

A new and sparkling personality is introduced in “The Courtship of Andy Hardy,” which opens at the Avon Theatre soon, in Donna Reed, who plays the latest romance in Andy’s life. In a difficult role, first as an “ugly duckling” and then as a lovely debutante, she gives an outstanding acting performance. The story concerns the attempt of Judge Hardy to straighten out the life of a young girl whose existence has been rrtade pathetic by the bitter quarrels of her separated parents. To do it, he enlists the aid of Andy, who takes the girl to her first dance. She proves the expected wallflower and Andy’s evening is made miserable. His courage in the face of it wins her worship, and she resolves to make herself attractive. This she does at the next dance, but Andy still doesn’t return her feelings, a source of no little worry to himself as well as to her. Lewis Stone is as sympathetic as ever as the wise, small-town judge, and his “man to man” talks with Andy prove highlights of the picture. Fay Holden, Cecilia Parker, Ann Rutherford and Sara Haden also score in their familiar characterisations. STATE “WINGS AND THE WOMAN” The saga of two great aerial pioneers whose achievements apart and together provide a story stranger and more romantic than fiction, “Wings and the Woman” has Anna Neagle and Robert Newton as a dazzling new star combination in the world’s motion picture screen. This film is showing at the State.

Daring to bring the real story of Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison to the screen with all the triumph that marked their success, the romance that attended their first meeting and the drama that ended their marriage, the new film is a vivid disclosure of the private lives of two public idols. Giving Anna Neagle a superb opportunity to display her talents as the immortal Amy Johnson, and presenting Robert Newton as the humorous, captivating and dare-devil Mollison, “Wings and the Woman” now presents two favourite artists in roles attuned to their ability. The historic details of the film is entirely authentic and was written by Lord Castlerosse. Miles Malleson contributed the scenario and screen play and Edward Chapman, Joan Kemp Welch and Nora Swinbourne portray the principal supporting roles, MAYFAIR “NO GREATER SIN” "No Greater Sin,” the daring social film about a doctor’s fight to overcome venereal disease and the conditions contributing to its spread in a defepce boom town, begins a second week at the Mayfair Theatre to-day. This is Hollywood's first attempt at a dramatic treatment of a delicate social subject, not in any indelicate manner, but sympathetically, with educational and high entertainment values. Although “No Greater Sin” performs a vital service to society, the primary purpose of the film is entertainment.

The scene is a small factory town in America which has had an influx of workers on account of the National Defence programme. The town is near a military training camp, and the springing up of night life has brought Leon Ames, a public health official, to the community to investigate conditions. Although he meets opposition from the local authorities, Ames manages to set up a clinic to give all factory employees a blood test In this way a young aircraft worker (George Tiggert) learns that bis young bride has contracted the dread disease from .him in spited the fact that he had been E renounced cured before his marriage y a quack who took all the yotmg man’s money. Threatening to expose the quack, Tiggert accidentally kills him, and the court trial brings out the truth and starts a reform movement which has the entire town behind it, LIBERTY “THE. SHANGHAI GESTURE” The film version of John Cotton’s popular play, “The Shanghai Gesture,” will be shown this week at the Liberty. The cast is headed by Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Ona Munson, Phyllis Brooks, Albert Basserman, Marie Ouspenskaya, Eric Blore, and a supporting cast of 60 others.

One of the most spectacular sets in this lavish film is the casino operated by Mother Gin Sling, an ultra den of Shanghai, meeting place for derelicts. The walls of Mother Gin Sling’s dining room, where she gives an elaborate dinner during the Chinese New Year, are 3000 square feet of mirror on which the noted Chinese artist, Keye Luke, painted more than 750 Chinese figures.

Another colourful set consists of a street scene in Shanghai during the Chinese New Year —a set which is a tnaze of alleyways festooned with bunting and alive with street parades, grotesque masks, and firework displays. Mother Gin Sling, a fascinating, glamorous woman bent on vengeance, is pomayed by Ona Munson; Gene Tierney plays Poppy, a girl who rushes headlong into disaster; Walter Huston is the smooth Sir Guy Charteris. “Meet the Stewarts,” with William Holden and Frances Dee, is the supporting film.

SHORTS THIS WEEK AVON.—"Melody Master," Hal Kemp and his orchestra; “Big Bill Tilden,” a sports parade; and "Sniffles Bells the Cat,” a Merrie Melodie Cartoon in colour. STATE.—“Cabalero College," a sportscope; “Baggage Busters,” a Walt Disney cartoon; and Fox Australian, showing official opening of the memorial to the late Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage. MAYFAIR—Unusual Occupations; Pathetone Weekly; “Thailand,” a travclcade; Pathe Pictorial; and Fox Australian News,

PLAZA “EMERGENCY LANDING” Enemy spies, a dare-devil test pilot, and a spoiled debutante form the nucleus of “Emergency Landing," which is coming soon to the Plaza Theatre. Carol Hughes plays the society girl, Betty Lambert, and when her selfishness is opposed by test pilot Jerry Barton, she does everything in her power to cause him discomfort. Forrest Tucker, recently seen in “The Westerner” is the pilot, whose robotcontrol invention stands to make him a fortune. , , While demonstrating a model to the girl’s father, an aeroplane manufacturer, Jerry sets it down in a puddle of water, dousing the debutante, and arousing her ire. The following day, testing the device on one of the Lambert aeroplanes, Jerry parachutes from the ship, unnerving the girl when he lands in her automobile. Unknown to Jerry, foreign agents, desirous of delaying the perfection of the invention, had tampered with the controls, and the pilotless aeroplane crashes. Undaunted, Jerry and his friend, Doc., return to the latter’s desert weather bureau observation post to perfect the device. “Bullets for O’Hara” will be the. supporting film,