A FINE COMEDY.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 101, 26 October 1938, Page 10

A FINE COMEDY.

"Dad and Dave Come to Town."

The long-threatened trip to town of Dad and Dave from Snake Gully has come off at last, and what a trip it is! If Australian pictures progress on the lines of the film "Dad and Dave Come to Town," which is to be shown in Wellington soon, they will be sought in place of more stereotyped productions. They lack nothing in finish, but they carry the spirit of Australia, which is giving it a distinctive national touch. This film is, of course, a comedy, but one in which the artistry is on a high plane. The latent subtlety of the "Aussie" is well expressed, While there are the comforting virilities of speech and action that , older peoples have lost. Dave's inventions on the farm, the local feuds, and the fiery explosions of Da<i from which a cunning expression gleams out through the whiskers presaging an immediate solution of the trouble, together with family jars and thwarted love affairs keep the audience helpless until an "uncle" dies in Sydney, and Dad, Dave, and Mum go to town. Dave munches bath salts with gusto, and they are all wild-eyed and awkward for a day or two, but through : circumstances Dad has to take over a frock shop, and the trio are plunged into a: Hiaelstrom of lace, mannequins, feminine men, and finance. As with all Australian pictures sentiment is not out of date, and the triumphal exit of Dad through the help of a hereditary enemy against the sharks is in keeping. Bert Bailey has never done anything like as good as Dad. Fierce and ebullient, so weighted with a belated common sense that he is.never really bogged, he is the king-pin of an amazing sequence of events, anally in top hat and frock coat putting on a fashion parade which is the equal of anything produced overseas, and the unobtrusive novelty of real artistry. Shirley Ann Richards, as his oldest daughter, a city educated modiste, helps out by enlisting the sympathies of the American Billy Rayes, a go-getter publicity hound. Dave grabs most of the humour, and a great deal of the attention, because Fred McDonald simply makes the part live. (Whenever his mouth waters, Dave's larynx involuntarily gurgles. It is a sound indicative of visions of untold j bliss. He soon gives up fondling plaster figures, and when fie meets Muriel Flood as Myrtle, a coy mannequin with possibilities, the gurgle should be appreciated. Myrtle rises to her best work in the shameless vamping of the sharks to their undoing. Alec Kellaway shines as an effervescent, Venus^like floorwalker. Leila Steppe, the other American, is a ■'mannequin who has a share in the plot. As for the dialogue, it is clever, but1 never over the edge, though one senses the precipice occasionally. More fun is packed into each scene in this great comedy than into three ordinary films. Bert Bailey, who is coming to New Zealand Shortly, will appear in conjunction with the picture at the four centres.