PLAZA THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 14

PLAZA THEATRE

* “Okay For Sound”

The Plaza Theatre has gone almost completely crazy this week. That, however, is not such a serious criticism as it may sound, since the new British attraction “Okay for Sound” is intended as nonsense and nothing else. If you are in the mood for folly, you should enjoy it. “Okay for Sound” rather interestingly illustrates the difference between American and British brands of farce. The nearest equivalent from Hollywood, I suppose, would be a Marx Brothers’ picture. There is the same complete lack of rhyme or reason, much the same slapstick, and even much of the same practice of injecting song and dance items at intervals as has marked recent Marxian movies. And one of the Crazy Gang in “Okay for Sound” pursues pretty women with just as much vigour and sinister intent as the dumb Harpo. But one should not carry the comparison too far. There is much less subtlety, and a good deal less real wit in this sample of British burlesque thau there is in the American. The starring combination of knockabout comedians in “Okay for Sound” consists of three comparatively famous musichall and radio duos- —Flanagan and Allen, Nervo and Knox, and Naughton and Gold. There is not much to choose between them in merit. Each has some special peculiarity, but all have noisiness and craziness in common. This silly sextet invades a British film studio (depicted with some rather clever satire), and is mistaken for a band of important financiers who are supposed to be putting money into the productions. They are given a completely free hand, and turn the whole place into a bedlam—but the film (which they produce and appear in turns out to be a sensational success. This result is in keeping with the general absurdity of the whole story. The picture contains plenty of laughs, the brightest, sequence being one intended to show the difference between an American and a British wrestling match. “Bobby Breen” Personality Quest. A Bobby Breen personality . quest begins at the Plaza Theatre on Friday. There is a first prize of £5/5/- and 'a second prize of £2/2/-.