PLAZA THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 283, 24 August 1940, Page 7

PLAZA THEATRE

Sandy Powell, as Able Seaman Skipton, provides a great deal, of fun—-ana some tense situations—in “All At bea, the Gaumont British film now screening at the Plaza Theatre. lie is supported by the very attractive Kay "Walsh, the inimitable Gus McNaughton, John Warwick and Leslie Perrins. Sandy Skipton, whose general attitude to life is so carefree that he seldom keeps a job for Jong, is messenger in a great chemical factory when the story opens. Some balancing experiments with glass flasks, and a rather cavalier manner with managers and ink-bottlers, earn him dismissal once more, but not before he has made the acquaintance and friendship of Miss Miles (Kay Walsh), who, with her father, has invented a new and tremendously powerful explosive. Sandy, casual as usual, does his last job for the firm by conveying the previous cylinder'of explosive to the strongroom and then leaving the wrong parcel behind. With enough explosive in his trouser pocket to sink a battleship, he returns to his grim-faced landlady, who only puts up with his shiftless ways because she hopes that somehow, someday, she might he paid her back rent. She suggests that he gets a job in the stage presentation of “Lads in Blue” at the local cinema soon to be re-opened. Unfortunately, the Navy recruiting office is in the same district, and Sandy joins the Navy without realizing what he has done till too late. AU this while, the crooked factory manager and his assistant, and the proprietor of the factory, are hunting for Sandy, the manager and his assistant in order to be able to sell the explosive to a foreign Power, the proprietor in order to manufacture it for the Government. But Sandy rather likes the Navy, and till he sees Miss Miles’s distress, has quite forgotten about the mislaid cylinder. When he does produce it from his kit-bag. he innocently gives it to the wrong man. Then starts the hunt to recover it, with Sandy and Gus in many an awkward predicament, but triumphant in the end. Along with “All at Sea” go a number of.interesting supports, the best, of which is a "March of Time” of Canada at war. It is unusually good of its kind, and specially interesting to those who know John Grierson, documentary film producer and now Canadian Film Commissioner. Mr. Grierson is shown in serious mood, stddynig naval films .in company with two other high officials of the Canadian Government.