ENTERTAINMENTS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 162, 5 April 1938, Page 16

ENTERTAINMENTS

“Imitation Of Life” Showing Al New Paramount Adapted from Fannie Hurst’s bestseller of the same name, “Imitation of Life” is now at fhe New Paramount Theatre. Claudette Colbert is an ideal heroine. Warren William plays opposite her and Ned Sparks and Baby Jane head a strong supporting cast. "The Life of Emile Zola.” “’The Life of Emile Zola,” starring Paul Muni, is to be screened at the New Paramount Theatre on Friday. It traces iu graphic detail his struggles in early life, his rise to fame, and the dramatic part he plays in the Dreyfus affair. Western Thrills And A Comedy At De Luxe Zane Grey’s thrilling drama of the great outdoors, “Born to the West,” with John Wayne and Marsha Hunt, is now showing at the De Luxe Theatre. The second feature is the side-splitting comedy. “Love on Toast,” with Stella Ardler, Benny Baker, Isabel Jewell, Grant Richards, John Payne and Luis Alberni. Thrills and comedy such as this combination ensure good entertainment to widely varying tastes. “It’s a Grand Old World.” and “The Black Doll.” Sandy Powell’s newest film. “It’s a Grand Old World,” together with the crime club thriller, “The Black Doll.” which features Nan Grey and Donald Woods, will begin at the De Luxe Theatre on Friday. Romance Of The North Woods At St. James Based on the famous novel by Rex Beach, “The Barrier” is now showing at the St. James Theatre, presenting a new romaiijic team in a story of the North Woods. Jean Parker, whose performance in “.Sequoia” brought her many plaudits, is equally outstanding in the role <?f Necia in “The Barrier,” in which her youth and beauty bring the part of the unsophisticated daughter of an Alaskan squaw-man to throbbing, pulsing life. James Ellison’s performance as the young personable armv officer in love with the girl he imagines to be a halfbreed. is as vigorous as it is charming. “Mad About Music.” For the third time iu her short career,

15-year-old Deanna Durbin triumphs. Less than two years ago, Deanna was an unknown Los Angeles schoolgirl, not even dreaming of a screen career. Her first picture established her as a child of promise; her second confirmed that promise. Her third, “Mad About Music, which begins at the St. James Theatre on Friday, proves beyond a doubt that little Miss Durbin is a genuine star, firmly established in her niche of screen fame. “Mad About Music” is a delightful picture. It presents Deanna in a different characterisation from those of her previous pictures, and in a mood and tempo Entirely different. “Mad About Music” is a comedy drama. Only a few tears and those in the most effective manner —intrude into the story of the little girl with the make-believe father whose dreams come true. Deanna sings as beautifully as ever. With the exception of Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” her selections are lighter, more in the popular ballad vein, than those of “100 Men and a Girl.” She renders three songs, “I Love to Whistle,” “Serenade to the Stars” and “Chapel Bells,” by Jimmie McHugh and Harold Adamson, in addition to “Ave Maria.” Two Comedy Riots At The King’s One of the strongest comedy casts ever assembled in Hollywood is seen in “There Goes the Groom,” RKO Radio’s newest romantic laugh riot, which is now showing qt the King’s Theatre. Ann Sothern and Burgess Meredith provide the romance. With unique complications to agitate their traditionally-harassed film lives, Bert 'Wheeler and Robert Woolsey rise to new comic heights in “High Flyers,” their latest RKO Radio picture, the second feature. Three-Feature Programme. Three features comprise the King's Theatre programme for Friday. The first is the 10-round Farr-Braddock fight, the second is “Everybody’s Doing It,” with Preston Foster and Sally Eilers, and the third is “Living on Love,” starring James Dunn and Whitney Bourne. Technicolour Drama Of The Sea At The Regent The first sea picture ever filmed in technicolour. “Ebb Tide,” is now showing at the Regent Theatre. Based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, the film is played by Oscar Homolka, noted Viennese star, Frances Farmer, Ray Milland, Lloyd Nolan and Barry Fitzgerald. The story has to do with a derelict, Mil-

land, who falls in love with the daughter of a dead sea captain (Miss Farmer). Homolka, a captain on the beach because of his bad record of drunkenuess, a beachcomber, Milland and his companion, Fitzgerald, a conniving Cockney, are all thrown together on a trading ship in the South Pacific. “Angel.” Melvyn Douglas, Herbert Marshall, Marlene Dietrich and Edward Everett Horton are among the cast of “Angel,” which will begin on Friday at the Regent Theatre. It is a delightful Ernst Lubitsch modern comedy. Hilarious Picture Of New York Life At Plaza David 0. Selznick has achieved another big hit with "Nothing Sacred,” which is showing at the Plaza Theatre this week. “Nothing Sacred” is a hilarious dramatisation of life in New York. The film is a satire'on New York journalism. It is a riotous job of “spoofing,” with-every episode and every shot made to tell in piling up laughs. Carole Lombard, who has a notable flair for comedy roles, is said to give the finest performance of her career. Fredric March is also starred, and provides much of the comedy as the cosmopolitan journalist who unwittingly perpetrates a costly hoax on the publisher and editor of his newspaper. “Dinner At the Ritz.” The glamorous French star Annabella, is to be seen shortly at the Plaza Theatre in “Dinner at the Ritz.” “Big City” Shows For A Second Week At Majestic , More than ordinary originality has gone into the making of the picture ‘‘Big City,” which is in its second week at the Majestic Theatre, with Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy co-starred. The story devotes itself to the human adventure of a humble taxicab-driver and his immigrant bride. The city is merely background. Miss Rainer retains the same human qualities that made her other roles so powerful. Tracy now becomes a hackman with same human touch that made his previous film roles stand out. “Madaine X.” “Madame X,” with Gladys George, Warren 'William, and-J'ohn Beal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s new and modern version of an ageless triumph, will be the feature to bo presented at the Majestic Theatre on Friday.

New Film Find In Picture At State 1 A young British actor makes a sensational film debut in “The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel,” which is showing for a second week at the State Theatre. He is Barry K. Barnes, who puts up a magnificent performance. Nearly everyone is familiar with the Baroness Orczy character, the English dandy who devoted his life to the rescue of innocent victims of the French Revolution. “The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernell” takes up the story at the point where the identity of the Pimpernel is known to the tyrant Robespierre and his chief of police, Chauvelm. “Stand-In.” The hilarious screen version of the popular “Saturday Evening Post” story “Stand-In.” which conies to the State on Friday, casts Leslie Howard in _ the comedy role of Atterbury Dodd, a tnnid voung banker who knows everything about figures but nothing about fun, and goes to Hollywood to take over a 10.000,-000-dollar film studio. Joan Blundell as Lester “Sugar” Plum, the etand-in of the title, falls in love with this strange fellow, and with the aid of Humphrey Bogart, playing a genius producer, helps him to foil a crowd of villains who are conspiring to get possession of the studio.