ENTERTAINMENTS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 217, 10 June 1936, Page 5

ENTERTAINMENTS

“Little Lord Fauntleroy” at Regent Theatre The immortal story ‘‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,” at the. Regent Theatre, has become a beautifully-acted picture in which Freddie Bartholomew, C. Aubrey Smith, Dolores Costello, and Guy Kibbee are prominent in a notable cast. To-day and to-morrow, when the season closes, there will be special “after-school" sessions at 4.30 to enable schoolchildren to see this film. “The Amateur Gentieman.” The fine spirit of Jeffery Faruol’s richly romantic best-seller, "The Amateur Gentleman," has been admirably caught in the British film version which will start on Friday at the Regent Theatre. Farnol’s thrilling story of an innkeepers son who uses his wits and his fists to break into the gilded society, of Regency days in order to secure the evidence necessary to eave his unjustly accused father from the gallows is told on the screen with breeziness ami comedy. The acting ranks with the best, and the dialogue by the famous playwright Clemenee Dane is particularly good. Young Douglas Fairbanks junior iff perfectly cast as Barnabas Barty, the hero of varied escapades and escapes. Elissa Landi makes an entirely suitable heroine as Lady Cleone, who wears effectively both the beautiful Regency gowns and the Regency grand manner when occasion demands. “The Story of Louis Pasteur” Opens at De Luxe To-day Generally conceded to be one of the most significant works that has ever been brought to the screen, the new Warner Bros.-Cosmopolitan picture, "The Story of Louis Pasteur;” will have its New Zealand premiere at the De Luxe Theatre to-day. Opening a new picture on Wednesday is a departure from routine, but this action was prompted by the more than usual interest that has been manifest in the film since it was first announced. Everywhere "The Story of Louis Pasteur” has been screened it has been greeted with unreserved praise by the Press. It is fitting that the life and work of one of the most noble men of all time should be used as a subject for a screen play, and to Warner Bros, must go much credit for the making of a breathless entertainment from an unexpected theme. Pasteur’s discovery of germs as the source of disease; the development of a vaccine against anthrax; arid the way in which the medical profession was riven to its foundations on the question of a rabies serum—-such matters as these become a dramatic, absorbing record of events. By the time the final scene is reached, and Pasteur, triumphant, is greeted by the admiring, almost reverent, acclaim of the French Academy of Medicine, the spectator has so fully identified ’himself with the story that he feels a thrill of deeply emotional response. Paul Muni is really fine as Pasteur; Josephine Hutchinson, Anita Louise, and Donald Woods are also in the cast.

Comedy and Drama at the St. James Theatre

A judicious blend of comedy and drama is offered in the St. Jhmes’s double feature programme. Clean, crisp comedy dominates ‘Her Master’s Voice,” an engrossing story of plain folk, which features that popular screen star, Edward Everett Horton, as “The Fireside Troubadour” for a radio company, who triumphs over a nagging mother-in-law and. dominating Aunt Min. The second feature. “Woman Trap,” is a thrilling Paramount drama of exciting happenings on the wrong side of the Rio Grande. “Mary Burns, Fugitive.”

In “Mary Burns, Fugitive,” which comes on Friday to the St. James Theatre, Sylvia Sidney is seen as a girl hunted by the law, a victim of circumstantial evidence. Unaware that her sweetheart, a former college football hero, Alan Baxter, has turned public enemy, Miss Sidney is sentenced to a long prison term because of her innocent association with him. She makes a successful jail break with a friend and cell mate, Pert Kelton, unaware that Miss Kelton has been put on her trail by G-men who hope she will reveal the hide-out of Baxter, still at large. Miss Sidney gets a job in a hospital and meets Melvyn Douglas, a famous but temporarily blind scientist. However, Baxter, madly in love with her, puts his gang on her trail and she is forced to flee. Hunted equally by the law and the underworld, she seeks refuge in Douglas’s home. Promising to give herself up, the two are about to be married when Baxter appears and threatens to kill Douglas. A thrilling, dramatic climax brings the film to a finale. “Thoroughbred,” Racing Film at Majestic Theatre A vigorous open-air picture, “Thoroughbred,” the new Australian film, for which Helen Twelvetrees was imported from Hollywood, will screen finally at the Majestic Theatre to-morrow evening. Tommy Dawson (Frank Leighton) brings the hero, Stormalong, from New Zealand to race in Sydney. Subsidiary interest is lenf to the story by Bill Reel’s love of Joan and his father’s faith in equine blue blood. The race for the cup is a fine spectacle. “The Bohemian Girl." Those perennial purveyors of fun, Laurel and Hardy, have never appeared in a more delightful or more humorous full-length motion picture than "The Bohemian Girl," their screen version of the Balfe opera, which will commence at the Majestic Theatre ou Friday. "The Bohemian Girl" concerns the adventures of a gipsy band of which Laurel and Hardy are happy-go-lucky members, Mrs. Hardy, played by Mae Busch, is enamoured of Devilshoof, a romantic vagabond. Devilshoof is administered a flogging when he is caught skulking within the castle grounds belonging to Count Arnheim, played by William P. Carleton. In revenge, “Ollie’s” wife kidnaps Princess Arline, baby daughter of the count. Then- Devilshoof and Mrs. Hardy elope, leaving “Ollie” with the baby princess on his hands. He and his good friend, Stanley, raise Arline as a gipsy, and it is not until she has ground into young woman■hood that she is returned to her rightful place in the world.

Adventure Film at the State Theatre

Fast action and rough and tumble adventure are essential ingredients of “A Message to Garcia,” at the State Theatre. John Boies has the part of -Lieutenant Rowan, entrusted with the delivery of a message to General Garcia, isolated by the enemy in the interior jungles and swamps of Cuba. Barbara Stanwyck is cfist as Rowan’s assistant and guide on the journey. Wallace Beery has the important part of a renegade of the American marines. “It Had to Happen.” When a glamorous lady who is wilful meets a handeome man with a masterful way, things are bound to happen, and they do .in 20th Century’s “It Had to Happen,” which co-stars George Raft and Rosalind Russell, commencing on Friday at the State Theatre. Based on a fascinating story by Rupert Hughes, the picture presente the screen’s newest romantic team in a drama of a man who conquered money, power, position, to win the heart of a lovely and alluring woman. The picture follows the rise of Raft from a lowly position to the heights of political power in an Eastern city. He is inspired by the beauty of Rosalind Russell, an heiress, whom ho momentarily glimpsed. But when Raft has achieved power she is already married to Alan Dinebart. The paths of Raft and Dinebart cross when Dinchart, in danger of imprisonment for embezzling funds from his bank, offers a bribe to Raft to fix things. Raft, instead, forces him to make restitution to the bank in order to save the thousands of depositors. When Miss Russell meets the man who has adored her all these years, she feels admiration and n growing love for hiiu. Contrast with h«r cowardly