ENTERTAINMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 February 1939, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

OPERA HOUSE. “Yes, I killed him! killed him as you’d kill a rattler coiled to strike at your baby, and for the same reason! Twenty years ago his blackmail cost me my home, my husband, my little daughter. For 20 years I have spent in searching from city to city, singing wherever I could to pick up some money, so I could look further. Last night I found her, more beautiful than I had ever dared dream in all my years of heart-hunger. I found her . . . with him! I knew only one way to save her, the blackmail that ruined my life!” This is just one of the highly emotional scenes displayed by Kay Francis, who gives the greatest performances of her career in “Confession,” to be screened at the Opera House to-night, also to-morrow and Thursday, with lan Hunter, Basil Rathbone and Jane Bryan in strong supporting roles. The story is that of a talented girl who gives up ah operatic career to marry her husband, who goes off to war, and in an hour following at a gay party in | Vienna, a musician takes advantage of her. She is stricken with remorse and terror at what she has done, although she knows it was not her fault, for in the manner of villains, he plied her with liquor. She cannot face the thought of having her husband find out about it, because she loves him so much. The musician, not content with what he has already done, starts blackmailing and terrifies her, and at last she persuades him to leave her alone, if only for her child’s sake. Her husband, returning, learns of this, divorces the singer, and gets custody of their baby daughter. Years pass, and Miss Francis goes down and down. Then she sees Rathbone, in a cheap restaurant, exercising his wiles on the daughter, played by Jane Bryan. She shoots and kills him. A thrilling court scene takes place, and you are asked to decide the question— Was she justified in the slaying of this person who wrecked her life? Don’t miss seeing this gripping drama that will make you blink back the tears, feel a catch at your throat, and make you, wajnt someone you love hold tight to your hand. REGENT THEATRE. Miss Da,vis, co-starring with Leslie Howard in “It’s Love I’m After,” which has its final showing at the Regent Theatre to-night, says she is amazed by the number of missives which tell her: “I’ve never liked you on the screen until recently. I hated the characters you played, but now I’ve come to realise that you’re only acting a. dramatic part.” “LITLE MISS ROUGHNECK.” “Little Miss Roughneck,” featuring Edith Fellowes with Leo Carillo winds up its local run at the Regent Theatre to-night. The film is a riotous comedy musical.

“THE WESTLAND CASE?’

With Preston Foster heading an allstar cast, the thrilling production of “The Westland Case,” a. prize-winning Crime Club Mystery Dra,ma, comes to the Regent Theatre to-morrow. Beginning at that high point of excitement where most mystery stories leave off, the picture is charged with spine chilling suspense, fast action and hilarious laughter brought on by the whimsical humour of the super-* sleuth Detective Crane. Crane’s suave manner is only a mask for his shrewd plan to outwit the murderer. Based.

on Jonathan Latimer’s popular Crime Club novel, “Headed 1 for a Hearse,” the picture deals with Crane’s amazing powers of deduction in trying to secure evidence that will free Richard Westland from the charge of murdering his beautiful wife in her exclusive pent-house apartment. ' A new method of modern police procedure is revealed when Crane calls the convicted man’s friends and business associates into the warden’s office and' shows them a motion picture of the crime re-enacted by the police. As fast as he gets a hot clue to the identity of the real murderer, the individual involved is slain by mysterious assailants. Everyone is under suspicion. BLONDES ARE DANGEROUS. Stories of champion boxers who win fame are known to every follower of the game, but there are only a few motion pictures to portray the fierce loves and hates, anguish and jealousies, true friends and false who surround those who wear the crown. “Some Blondes Are Dangerous,” which comes to the Regent Theatre to-morrow, will tear the heart strings and arouse the emotions. Seldom has a picture brought such a powerful cast. It is high-lighted with fierce play of emotions, comedy, tenderness and pathos. Noah Beery, jnr., is the “iron man” who first wins, then throws away a championship by fast living. William Gargan is his astute manager (George Regan) who, when he cannot control the “iron man,” brings about his defeat to restore him to sanity. Dorothea Kent, beautiful and glamorous, portrays Rose Whitney, the Broadway siren who leads the “iron man” to his doom. Nan Grey, one of the “Three Smart Girls,” has the part of Judy Williams, oldtime sweetheart of-the champion who 1 comes to him after all others desert him. It is a thrilling picture, filled with the smash of leather, the unleashing of the emotions, the glitter of Broadway, and the background’ of life in the ring.