ENTERTAINMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1939, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

OPERA HOUSE Romance and sure-fire comedy are combined with uproarious results in “Rich Man, Poor Girl,” featuring Robert Young, Lew Ayres and Ruth Hussey, to be screened at the Opera House to-night, to-morrow and Thursday. Young, a socialite millionaire in love with his secretary, played by Miss Hussey, is in a breezy, personable role. Lew Ayres in the part of Miss Hussey’s impetuous cousin, champion of the middle classes, unquestionably hurls himself into Hollywood’s front rank of comedians with this delightful characterisation. Miss Hussey, undertaking her first leadingrole, is an engaging and charmingheroine. Young and Miss Hussey are in love, and wish to get married, but she fears, the wide social gulf which separates them and insists that he meet her family. The folks at home, “Ma” Thayer, played by Sarah Padden, and “Pa” Thayer, played by Guy Kibbee, Frank, Don Castle, and the hot-headed Cousin Henry, as portrayed by Ayres, are suspicious of the millionaire. Miss Hussey’s sister, Lana Turner, however, considers the proposed marriage a windfall, and one which shouldn’t be blown away. In order to impress the° family with the seriousness of his intentions, Young moves into their tiny flat with them —and then thejailarity begins to bubble. At last Young, unable to aid the Thayers financially, or win their favour, is reduced to the extremity of threatening to give away his fortune. With lightning-like rapidity and in a series of rip-roaring scenes the Thayers prevent him from carrying out his threats and with their objections to his helping, them overruled, he marries Miss Hussey.

“LITTLE MISS BROADWAY Simply surrounded by singing, dancing, romancing and fun-making show people, Shirley Temple, the world’s number one star will show you the time of your life in “Little Miss Broadway.” The musical thrill-hit of the year, coming to the Opera House on Friday for a short season, with George Murphy, Phyllis Brooks, Jimmy Durante and Edna May Olliver, heading a stellar cast.

REGENT: FINAL SCREENINGS—“HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME,” with Giciger Rogers and Douglas Fairbaniks, Junr. COMMENCING TO-MORROW: Hopalong Cassidy ini “PRIDE OF THE WEST”; also “(KING OF ALCATRAZ.” One of the boldest and most prevalent crimes of the frontier West, stage coach and mail robbery, forms the background of Clarence E. Mulford’s “Hopalong Cassidy” action drama, “Pride of the West.” A pair of criminals, who pose as respectable citizens of the pioneer town in which the action of the story takes place, make their big mistake when they try to pin the blame for the robbery on “Hoppy’s” two saddlemates, “Windy Halliday” and “Lucky Jenkins,” as this brings the Bar 20 foreman into the fray against them. With the help of a daring youngster and a beautiful girl, "Hopalong” catches the thieves red-handed with the gold and clears his friends of suspicion. Also screening, “King of Alcatraz." with Llovd Nolan, Gail Patrick, J. Carrol Naish, Harry Carey, Porter Hall and Robert Preston in the leading roles, is a thrilling story of a daring prison escape .plan; present-day piracy of a ship and a thrill-packed emergency operation on the high seas, with

instructions as how to proceed transmitted via radio by a doctor hundreds of miles from the scene. These are some of the highlights from the film which is packed with action and suspense. Plans are now onen, and early reservations are advised. WAR IN SPAIN. Dr. D. W. .Tolly and Bert Bryan, of the International Brigade in Spain, will speak in the Town Hall, Greymouth, this evening. Dr. Jolly will deal in an interesting fashion with the organisation of the Republican forces and medical aid on the' battlefields. There has just been published an epic book, “Britons in Spain, which mentions the humanitarian work of Dr. Jolly and his colleagues in the following passage:—“From Britain there care many nurses and doctors on a mission of mercy, and their devoted services will be forever remembered with gratitude by the soldiers of the Republic. The services of the British medical unit were, however, not allotted exclusively to the volunteers from abroad, but’ extended to the Republican forces in general, although the wounded Britishers naturally sought to be placed under the care of nurses and doctors from the Old Country, and some hospitals with a predominately British personnel were established. The njjmes of Drs. Tudor Hart, Steele, Bradsworth, Jolly and Saxton will never be forgotten by those men of the British battalion who had need of their services.”

WAR NEXT WEEK? This’ is not a vague assumption. Alas! it is a grim likelihood. People of all classes and creeds are expressing the hope that the Russians will be fighting at our side if we are involved in a military conflict. In his dramatic book, “Insanity Fair,” Douglas Reed states: “The desperate longing for peace of a people bled white, plundered and starved by the ghouls that fatten on war production, in a world at war, the Bolshevist Revolution.

“Ambitions for conquest, revenge, and the resubjugation of the masses produced in a world at peace, the Fascist and National Socialist regimes. “The European line-up had begun, and the signs were that the British Empire would have to let itself be saved by Russia again, or hand over the British Empire in instalments to Germany.” As Russia is to be our ally, why not “get the strength” of what there is to know about it. Mr. T. McGillick, the Australian speaker, has been there quite recently, and moreover, has a fundamental grasp of the international situation. Tn his adress, “What I Saw in Soviet Russia,” he will clearly describe the significance of this great Republic In the world to-day.