ENTERTAINMENTS.

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 148, 20 March 1934, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS.

ST. JAMES THEATRE. In “Private Detective 62,” at the St. James Theatre, William Powell gives a performance equal to any of those which have made him famous in the past. His new work does not bring him much excitement until he gets the pob of framing something on a very beautiful young lady, who has been having far too much luck in a gambling den for the comfort of its proprietor. Then the thrills come in earnest. Murder, attempted murder, and a particularly clever double-cross all play their part in a plot that is most ingeniously worked out and full of drama. With him is Margaret Lindsay. The supports are varied and well selected. “The Midnight Club.” Clive Brook, with a large cast of stars, comes to the St. James on. Friday in a film that contains profusely the ingredients of drama and excitement. It is “Midnight Club,” and in it Clive Brook is said to equal, if not surpass, the best work he has done previously. : MAJESTIC THEATRE. “Should Ladies Behave?” at the Majestic Theatre, is enthralling entertainment from start to finish. Place a divorced philandress, a young impressionable girl who is seeking “experience”; a silly, giddy wife a suave continental lover, and a suspicious husband together under one roof for a week-end, and the stage is set. It is a drawing-room comedy, farcical to the extreme, but tempered with a tender love interest which gives the story a piquancy of its own. A feature of the programme is the overture, “March Majestic,” which was specially composed and is played for the theatre by Ivan Perrin and his band. “Cinderella’s Fella.” A musical romance of love and laughter, “Cinderella’s Fella.” comes to the Majestic Theatre on Friday. Superimposed on an intriguing little story are many large and lavish scenes in which hundreds of singing and dancing beauties take part. The big reputation of this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production well precedes it. In the east _ are Marion Davies, Bing Crosbie, Fifi D'Orsay. Stuart Erwin, and many others equally ns good. PARAMOUNT THEATRE. The famous singer Jan Kiepura’s golden voice has a big attraction and immense audience appeal when heard in the delightful operatic melodics and melodious theme song of the brilliant entertainment, “Tell Me To-night,” at the Paramount Theatre. Quite apart from his admirable singing and effective acting, the young Polish tenor has a personality which is in itself an nsset that endcars him to his public. The beautiful scenic settings of the picture make a delightful background to the vocal beauties of the production. Edmund Gwenn. always good, is at his very best as the Mayor of Zern, and his flirtatious 'wife is well j/layed by Athene Seyler,

wEo scores a decided success in her love scenes with the popular English comedinn and singer, Sonme Hale. lhe duet, “Not For Myself Alone,’ as rendered by this versatile pair, is a great favourite with the audience. The last three nights ■arc announced. “High Treason.”. Next. Friday’s big attraction will be the mighty British epic, “High Treason, which unfolds an entrancing pwimecy of what London may be like in 1940.

REGENT THEATRE. An English screen version of John Galsworthy’s play “Loyalties” is being presented at the Regent Theatre. Ferdinand de Levie, the Hebrew in the case, possesses in greater degree those virtues of honour and breeding than the society people who seek to smirch his good name. The plot is excellently suited to film adaptation, having unusual emotional and action properties. Much of it ie set in a brilliant house party, and toward the end there is a great court case. An outstanding performance is given by Basil Rathbone, who, handsome, clean-cut,.and suave, gives a gripping and sensitive characterisation of the young Jew. There are excellent and well-varied supports. “Roman Scandals.” “Roman Scandals,” Eddie Cantor’s fourth annual screen musical comfor Samuel Goldwyn, begins at the Regent Theatre on Friday. Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart, and David Manners cavort with Eddie in hia newest picture, successor to last year’s “The Kid from Spain.” . The pageantry and the spectacle of Ancient Rome, with its marching legions in burnished armour, the arenas and the bloody games, the beautiful slave girls in chains, and the Emperor’s gorgeous favourites in garlands of flowers, the glitter and pomp of a stately court and thundering steeds tearing their chariots through clouds of dust —all help to give Goldwyn a generous opportunity for another of the lavish productions that he makes of the annual Cantor carnival of fun and splendour. This ’is only a setting, however, for a single and human little comedy. Before Eddie gets to the chariot chase that winds up the hilarious yarn he meets other equally fantastic adventures.. In the great slave market scene he is placed on the auction block, while Ruth Ettiifg sings her haunting lament “No More Love, the dancing girls in their glittering skirts of silver mesh dance a wild bacchanal and the senators contemplate the charms of yellow-haired captives from far-off Britain, arrayed in a living frieze and for sale to the highest bidder. The gold and scarlet robes of state are worn by Edward Arnold ns the wicked Emperor Valerius and by statuesque Veree Teasdale as the Empress Agrippa. Gloria Stuart and David Manners are concerned in the romance that is guided along its rocky path by Eddie, and Ruth Etting has the role of Olga, the discarded mistress of. the Emperor.

STATE THEATRE. "I Was a Spy,” which still continues its season at the State Theatre, is one of the most emotionally vivid dramas that has ever been shown here. Because of the direction, action, and production, the result is more than a reproduction, or reflection, of the authentic historical theme; it is an illumination of it. It tells the true history of the young Belgian woman, Marthe McKenna, who, with her parents, was in the town of Roulers in 1915, after the Germans had occupied it, to make it a base behind the lines. Her untiring work among German wounded becomes invaluable. But still she is a Belgian and lives among her townsfolk; when her aunt in the intelligence service of the Allies takes brief refuge in her home. Marthe helps her in furtive missions, and gradually accepts, her destiny to become a unit in the machine—soon a very important unit, although, until near the end, an unobtrusive one. Her immediate superior in the hospital is also in the service. They work together, in love with each other, and both doing their double, incompatible duties seriously and without question. Madeleine Carroll is Marthe, Herbert Marshall her lover, Conrad Veidt the Tbwn Kommandant. “I Was a Spy” is ■a British film, and the director seems to have felt himself on sure ground in traversing a war theme, for the audience is told, or rather made to feel, the thrilling experiences of the spy behind the German lines. i DE LUXE THEATRE. “Captured," which is at the De Luxe Theatre, is an unusually stirring story of two close friends in a German prison camp, who love the same girl. Captain Allison (Leslie Howard) is the outstanding figure of the story. He depicts a man of splendid character who is obsessed with love of his bride, whom be has to leave when duty calls. His friend, Lieutenant Dogby (Douglas Fairbanks, iun.), is stationed at the same camp. During Allison’s absence at the front. Digby and Mrs. Allison (Margaret Lindsay) have fallen in love, and this is the moving point for a really good plot. Paul Lukas is well cast as a pleasingly human commandant. The excellent supporting programme includes Mr. Paul T. Cullen at the WuriiMr. "Design for Living.” Paramount’s film adaptation of Noel Coward’s “Design for Living” comes to the De Luxe Theatre on Friday. It is a picture in a merry, irresponsible vein, and is set mostly on a Parisian background. In “Design for Living,’ which stars Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, and Edward Everett Horton. Lubitsch brings to the screen a startling presentation of modern lite. There is a story of two men who love a woman without destroying their old ' bosom friendship. Miriam Hopkins is the young modern miss who cannot decide between the two men, played by March and Cooper. The three join forces. As it eventually must, the situation gets out of control —and it is not until Edward Everett Horton comes into the scene as a villainous comedian that the position resolves itself.

GRAND OPERA HOUSE. The story of one of the most amazing feats in the history of polar exploration —a trip under the ice in the Arctic in a submarine —is heing told at the Grand Opera House by the noted Australian polar explorer, Sir Hubert Wilkins. The accompanying film, “Arctic and Antarctic,” ipight be classed as an epic of polar exploration. Sir Hubert’s most thrilling account ends with his most amazing feat of all with the submarine Nautilus. The picture gives many interesting glimpses of life in the Arctic, and of'the Esquimeaux; of their wonder when the first aeroplane appeared ; of the trials and successes which come the way of the explorer.