PICTURE THEATRES

Evening Star, Issue 23553, 17 April 1940, Page 3

PICTURE THEATRES

REGENT Sophisticated, witty, right up to the minute in its fashions and settings, and brilliantly acted and produced. ‘ The Women,’ to finish tonight at the Regent, is thoroughly enjoyable entertainment. Based on the Clare Boothe play which was presented locally some time ago, it is a comedy of modern manners and morals with an underlying stratum of satire. STRONG MUSICAL CAST. One of the outstanding sequences from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s screen version of the famed operetta, ‘ Rose Marie,’ which will be opened at the Regent to-morrow, is the totem pole Indian dance, the grotesque _ set mounted on a sandspit extending into a broad Lake. Peopled by more than 1,000 dancers, lavish in costume, with music thrillingly beautiful, it sets a high standard for effect, photography, and spectacular direction. A strong supporting cast assists Jeanette Macdonald and Nelson Eddy in ‘ Rose Marie,’ -among them being James Stewart as the criminal brother, Reginald Owen as the star’s manager, and Allan Jones,' who scored so decisively in ‘ Firefly.’ EMPIRE The readers of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan stories must number millions, a ready-made and enthusiastic audience when Tarzan comes to life.on the screen, as he does in the film ‘ Tarzan Finds a Son,’ at the Empire. The mate of the spring-heeled jungle hero, Maureen O’Sullivan, is with him in this show, GRAND Everybody loves a fat man, so it is not strange when obese Oliver Hardy, aided and abetted by Stan Laurel, nearly disrupts the connubial bliss of Reginald Gardiner and Jean Parker. It is on the screen, however, and all in fun, for it is in the veteran comedy team’s latest feature picture, ‘ TJie Flying Deuces.’ that the fat man is seen as interloper. ‘ The Flying Deuces ’ began screening at the Grand to-day. Gardiner appears in one of his rare “ straight ” roles as a Foreign Legion officer, who advises Laurel and Hardy that men forget women very quickly in France’s famed colonial troop. It is only after the comedians nearly disrupt an entire Morocco post and just about wreck his married Happiness that the officer decides his advice was ill timed. Boris Morros produced ‘ The Flying Deuces ’ for RKO Radio release. The task of disentangling the complicated financial affairs of his fellow townsmen caused by the unscrupulous activities of the local bank president, is undertaken by a resolute merchant in a small lowa village, and is presented as. a gripping entertainment in ‘ Career,’ which is the associate feature. STATE People are apt 1 to bo distrustful when a" very well-known book character, is taken to make a film. But no one need have any doubts about the latest Twenieth Century-Fox production, ‘ Sherlock Holmes,’ at the State, with Basil Rathbone playing the famous detective in his most difficult of all cases, the case against Professor Moriarty. SONJA HENIE BRILLIANT. An array of entertainment talent seldom equalled on the screen will be seen in Irving Berlin’s ‘ Second Fiddle,’ which will be the next attraction to the State, with Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power starred, Rudy Vallee and Edna May Oliver featured, new star Mary Healy, and an eyeful of dancing and romancing to Berlin’s six new song hits. The Berlin songs include: ‘ I’m Sorry for Myself,’ ‘ An Oldfashioned Tune Always .is New,’ ‘ Song of the Metronome,’ ‘ When Winter Comes,’ -and ‘ I Poured My Heart Into a 'Song.’ For the first time on the screen Sonja Henie has a skating partner on the ice, young Stewart Reburn. The handsome Canadian athlete appeared with the ice star during her triumphant personal appearance, tour of the country last winter. Sonja also hangs up her skating shoes temporarily to join Rudy on the ballroom floor in the ‘ Back to Back,’ a new dance created by Harry Losee from the song written by Berlin for the film. ST. JAMES ‘ Island of Lost Men,’ and ‘ Death of a Champion,’ are the two films at the St. James. ‘ Island of Lost Men ’ is a tale of gun-runners, smugglers, renegades, and secret service agents in the jungle country up-river from Singapore. A girl’s search 'for her father and her endeavours to clear his name are the theme of the story. DRAMA AND COMEDY. 1 Stronger Than Desire ’ is the title of the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture coming to the St. James’ Theatre on Friday. Walter Pidgeon plays a prosperous lawyer, and Virginia Bruce his wife. Others in the cast include Lee Bowman, Ann Dvorak, Ilka Chase, and Rita Johnson. Dramatic highlights include the sensational acquittal of the wife, the reception of the wrist watch with its load of suspicions, the dramatic shooting in the apartment,

the husband’s discovery of his wife’s picture, photographed in the murdered man’s eye. Interspersed are delicate human interest moments between father, mother, and child, and comedy in the sophisticated dialogue of Ilka Chase. Frank Morgan heads a comedy cast in ‘ Beg, Borrow, or Steel,’ which comes to the St. James Theatre, beginning Friday. Also featured are Florence Rice and John Beal. 1 Beg, Borrow, or Steal ’ is hailed as a fast, madcap feast of entertainment. Among the comics, male and female, are Reginald Denny, George Givot, Cora Witherspoon, Herman Bing, E. E. Clive, Erik Rhodes, and Vladimir Sokoloff. OCTAGON The film version of the favourite Gilbert and Sullivan opera ‘ The Mikado ’ continues to attract large_ audiences to the Octagon, where it is now in the second week of its season. In its translation to the screen, ‘ The Mikado ’ has lost little of its essential atmosphere. R.A.F. OVER KIEL. A striking revelation of the power of the British Air Arm and the organisation that controls its activities is made in ' The Lion' Has Wings,’ the outstanding film which will be seen at the Octagon on Friday. Opening with a vivid summary of events which led up to the present conflict, the picture then goes on to deal - with the exploits of the Royal Air Force in attacking enemy positions and in beating off raids by German squadrons, the item of greatest interest being a realistic reconstruction of the successful raid on the Kiel Canal soon after the outbreak of hostilities. Leading characterisations are given in the production by Ralph Richardson and Merle Oberon. The film is a typically English production. A few shots of the English people at work and play typify their* desire for peaceful living and for _ social and cultural advancement, but in a graphic way the film shows swiftly and effectively how the Nazi threat made it impossible for Britain to disregard the possibility of having to go to war again._ STRAND Starring Lew Ayres and - Lana Turner, ‘ These Glamour Girls, a breezy story of American college life, is the principal attraction at the Strand. The plot deals with the efforts of a coterie of society girls to secure for t&emselves wealthy husbands from among some young college student* whose parents are supposedly well endowed with this world’s goods. The supporting feature is ‘ Renfrew of the Great White Trail,’ which features the world-famous organisation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, AMAZON JUNGLE DRAMA. Regarded as an authentic story dealing with rubber plantations in the Amazon jungle, Universal’s ‘ Tropic Fury,’ co-starring Richard Arlen and Andy Devine, will be shown on Friday at the Strand. The story tells of an attempt to break a monopoly. Arlen and Devine go directly to the heart of the trouble, and there fall into the power of the man who rules the interior. Forced to work as members of the rubber slave gang, they are finally successful in bringing order of, chaos. ’ Buck Jones will be seen in support as 1 the star of ‘ Border Brigands,’ a gripping Western drama. MAYFAIR Based on Dorothy Brandon’s famous stage play of the same name, which had a sensational London premiere a few seasons ago, ‘The Outsider’ opened at the Mayfair to-day. The story tells of a surgeon’s “ incurably ” crippled daughter, who, as a last hope, braves his displeasure by putting herself in the hands of an unqualified astebpath. Alexandre Dumas’s ‘ The Three Musketeers ’ stars Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers in support.