KING’S THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 121, 15 February 1941, Page 15

KING’S THEATRE

The cast of “21 Days Together,” now screening at the Kings Theatre, is the kind that will bring out a good audience on the wettest of nights. At the top of the Fist are Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, backed by Leslie Flanks ,a ml an extraordinarily exciting collection of English character actors. The story can be told quickly though the film's way of telling it gives it added interest. There is a debonair young ne’er-do-well and his brother, a judge-to be; and there is the ne'er-do-well’s girl, Wanda (Vivien Leigh). As the younger man, Olivier plays his part nt first with a gay abandon which, so to speak, sets the key for the tension of rhe later scenes. He and his girl are as happy as can be, celebrating their hapiness on five shillings raised at the pawnbroker’s shop; happy, that is, till they find a blackmailer pawing over the girl's past, struggling, being killed by accident, though no one would believe that. Their little world is shattered by fear, and the lawyer brother, partly sorry for the youngsters, oven more sorry for himself. tries to cover up the crime. But this involves the trial for murder of an innocent little tramp, a "decayed clergyman,” who has robbed the body and, in his own words, 4 lost his self-respect."

The young man will not accept his brother’s offer of money to get out of the country: but: he does accept the law's delay of 21 days, and tries to live out all his happiness with Wanda in that, short three weeks. How the happy ending comes, bringing release for pentup emotions—and doing it as naturally as could he —is one of the secrets of Basil Dean's direction : he does it magnificently. This is an unusual sort of film, imaginatively done and extremely well acted. Also on the programme is n colour cartoon ; a picture of Arizona, past and present; and an exciting Fox-Movietone News which includes pictures of the new dental clinic in Wellington.