ST. JAMES THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 44, 15 November 1941, Page 12

ST. JAMES THEATRE

Even if the new colour process does make the stars’ faces look a trifle grubby, there is no doubt about the magical effect of tropical scarlets and greens and blues in “Aloma of the South Seas,” now in its second week at St. James Theatre. There is nothing about this film to make, one ponder -in thej still watches of the night. Nothing that is likely to produce heated discussions at the family dinner table.

It fulfils the cinema’s principal function admirably, in that it is neither more nor less than entertainment-—colourful, exciting, romantic. There was a silent version of “Aloma,” a rather heavy drama of a Pacific feud that ended in disaster for many and a grim sort of romance for the principals. This time the same story is given' all the trappings of a musical comedy and, even if the tragedy is still there, it is not meant to be taken very seriously^—rather as if Harpo Marx fell off the EmpireState Building. The girls look more like Mr. Cochran’s Young Ladies than innocent young things on a primitive island. Dorothy Lamour dons her sarong with zest after a spell in ordinary clothes. To this reviewer Dorothy Lamour always conveys a faint air of amusement us if her part were a matter for silent laughter. This impression is heightened with “Aloma of the South Seas,” in which Dorothy plays the name part of the girl who is betrothed to the island king, a young man who is in America acquiring a Harvard accent an'd a collection of bottle-tops. She is supposed to be very unsophisticated — just a shrinking example of innocent girlhood beneath her Hollywood-designed sarong. And that seems ample reason for Dorothy Lamour’s air of amusement. Highlight of the whole picture is the terrific eruption when the mountain splits wide open and iwurs an awesome river of brilliant Technicolour lava down through the forests and the hills. This is action photography at its best —the frantic scurrying figures, the trees bending and breaking before the onslaught of lava and earthquake, the ground breaking and sliding into the troubled sea. Jon Hall is in bis element again ,as the husky, handsome island chief who spends a greal deal of time bathing, in a sapphire blue ;>ool with Aloma, or lying on its emerald green banks with the same young lady. Katharine de Mille and Philip Reed are splendid in the only two serious parts that the film calls for.