REGENT THEATRE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1937, Page 14

REGENT THEATRE.

"A Star is Born."

Janet Gaynor and Frednc March recently lived over again some ot the most thrilling moments of their careers as motion picture stars as a makebelieve scene on a make-believe set recalled what had happened to each in real life. The petite actress and handsome actor attended the annual award dinner of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. Din-ner-jacketed musicians playp ' soft love ballads. Beautifully-gowned women and tastefully-garbed escorts sipped cocktails in the lavishly-decorated room. There were speeches of praise and loud applause. All of it, however, occurred on a sound stage at belznick International studio, for a scene in the technicolour picture, "A Star is Born, in which Miss Gaynor and March will be seen at the Regent Theatre tomorrow. Every detail of the academy dinner was duplicated, even to the prized golden statuettes awarded annually. The scene depicted Miss Gaynor, in her role as a movie star, receiving an award, and to her it seemed very real. "It was easy to swing into the action." she said, "because I can never forget the time it happened in real life. It is one of my fond memories " She referred, of course, to the time when she had emerged from •■Seventh Heaven" the reigning star of the screen, and for her work received the greatest honour the industry can bestow. The setting used for the David O. Selznick picture scene is a copy of the Biltmore Bowl, and is the same size. A 15-piece orchestra, conducted by Manny Harmon, was engaged for the music, and more than 250 dress extras, men and women, were used to duplicate the gaiety of the annual award dinner. A real gala Hollywood premiere, complete with pressing throngs', searchlights, .radio announcer, and celebrities, is another highlight of "A Star is Born." This glamorous story of Hollywood's "inside" casts Miss Gaynor as a little country girl who came to Hollywood in search of fam,e, faced the crushing odds of 100.000 to one, and made good. Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, and Lionel Stander are prominently featured in this first up-to-the-minute story to be filmed in technicolour, and other playing important roles are Owen Moore, Peggy Wood, Elizabeth Jenns. Edgar Kennedy, J. C. Nugent, and Guinn Williams. Such world-famous Hollywood landmarks as the Trocadero, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Brown Derby, and the Biltmore Bowl as it looks during the annual banquet of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are shown in natural colour for the first time.