DE LUXE THEATRE

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

DE LUXE THEATRE

Gene Autry can claim little distinction as an actor. His singing voice is equalled and l bettered- by dozens of lesser lights. As a cowboy he is not in the same street as Tom Mix and Bill Hurt, and the other immortals of the silent days.

And yet this same Gene Autry was recently placed sixth in an American popularity poll, only being beaten by Clark Gable and others of that ilk, and easily overtopping Rooert Montgomery and 'Melvyn Douglas. He seems to make a film a week, he is deluged with contracts to sing on the American radio, gramophone companies beg him to make records for them, stage managers wave fabulous sums at him in exchange for personal theatre appearances. In other words. Gene Autry is one of those film phenomena, like Charlie McCarthy, who almost persuades film reviewers that they will never be able to gauge public opinion and that they might as well give up the job right now ! This week the world's most popular Western star is at the De Luxe Theatre in “Back in the Saddle.” The story is not original -—few Western stories are—but it is not going to prevent Gene Autry from attracting good business to the theatre for the rest of the season. He is the foreman of the Bar Cross Ranch and a leader of the other settlers against 81.-ine. wealthy mining magnate, who is deriving a great deal of pleasure from poisoning his neighbours’ cattle by dumping copper sulphate in the streams where they .drink. But his efforts to stamp out this menace .ire retarded by a young man whose guardian he is. This fellow, Tom Bonnett, imagines that Autry is in love with his sweetheart, a belief that, gets everyone into ail sorts of shootings and trouble. But Gene Autry finds time to sing, and Smiley Burnette practices more of his soft-cake brand o’ humour. Also on rhe programme is yet another of those films that make Tammany Hall in its notorious heyday look like the People's Palace. “A Mun Betrayed." witli John Wayne. Frai.ees Dee and Edward Ellis, is set in a city that is bound body and soul by the iron sliai-kles of political corruption. Bal there is one good woman on this earth for every bad man, and this time it is the litt.le Caesar’s own daughter who helps both him and the city back to decent living.