CHILDREN’S CINEMA

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 164, 9 April 1934, Page 11

CHILDREN’S CINEMA

Effort for the Smith Family

Tramcars had to look after themselves on Saturday morning near the De Luxe Theatre or they would have been charged down by an army of children who advanced upon that theatre in the gayest of holiday humour. From the north, and the east, from the south and the west they came, hand in hand, running, leaping, giggling with radiant happiness that only childhood can feel and express. They were not conscious perhaps, as they clasped their tiny pint milk tokens in the moist palms of their chubby little hands that they were doing their one good deed for tlie day. Yet they were. By attending the De Luxe Theatre, which, with the programme, was generously placed at the disposal of the Smith Family, they were helping that organisation to keep faitli with the undernourished children in the State schools of-the city in supplying a winter-time daily milk ration.

For this particular Smith Family effort Mr. Kemball supplied the theatre and programme; his manager (Mr. Eyre) supervises the programme, and the children are admitted on the presentation of a one-pint milk token. There could not have been fewer than 1600 children present on Saturday morning. Perhaps there were more, for it is customary to supply a certain number of tickets for the use of children whose parents cannot afford to buy the necessary milk token.

No matter what the attraction there could never have been a more appreciative audience in the history of tlie theatre. How they feasted on the innocent, barnyard michief-maklng of the famous “Our Gang”—loving that old ring-eyed dog, and vehemently hating the bad man who wants to shoot It. Even more quaint and poetical was the Walt Disney coloured symphony, “The Pled Piper of Hamelin.” as seen through the magic eyes of a caricaturist who has conquered the world with his brilliant imagination and facile art. Then, as a bon bouche for the boys of the audience was presented a typical Buck Jones “wild wester,” in which the bad man of the town attempts to ruin the ranchers by cutting off the water supply for the cattle. There was no doubting the intelligence of the audience. They soon sorted the lambs from the goats, hooted the bad men, and cheered Buck Jones as he rode.to the rescue of the oppressed.