ENTERTAINMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 August 1939, Page 10

ENTERTAINMENTS

OPERA HOUSE: Final Screening: “THE STORM.” The thrilling red-blooded sea drama “The Storm,” with Charles Bickford, Barton Lane and Preston Foster in leading roles will be finally screened at the Opera House to-night. This superlative story reveals untold drama in the lives of wireless operators at sea, seething with virile action, born of surging emotional conflicts between rugged he-men, courting danger and disaster to reach again the waiting arms of the women they love.

Next Attraction: N.Z. Premiere — “TROUBLE BREWING.”

There’s “Trouble Brewing” for Detective George Formby, the screen’s most popular comedian, and a real treat pf hearty laughter in store for picture patrons when they see him in his funniest film, “Trouble Brewing,” which commences its N.Z. premiere at the Opera House to-morrow (Friday) for an extended season. This time George is cast as a compositor whose burning ambition is to become a crime investigator. Aided and abetted by George Withers and Gus McNaughton, he succeeds in running to earth a gang of counterfeiters whose exploits have been baffling the police Before George achieves his triumph, however, he and his fellow amateur criminologists go through a series of screamingly funny misadventures in pursuit of their quarry. These take them in turn to a racecourse; an allin wrestling match, in which George suprisingly proves the victor against a bearded champion of the art; a party given by a famous opera singer, in which George is called upon to rescue an incriminating piece of paper from a most embarrassing hiding place; and finally they find themselves in a brewery, the headquarters of the gang of forgers, in which a never-to-be-for-gotten battle ensues. In a climax fraught with thrills and amusement George manages to trap the counterfeiters in a huge vat full of beer, the men becoming gloriously drunk before they are finally carried off by the police. In between all their “troubles” George finds time and place to sing three catchy comical songs, ~I Can Tell It By My Horoscope,” “Hitting the High Spots” and “Fanlight Fanny.”

REGENT—Now Showing's “SAFETY IN NUMBERS” and “GAMBLING SHIP.”

“Safety in Numbers,” featuring the Jones family, gets off to a breezy start with Mrs. Jones —voted -, The World’s Best Mother” in a radio contest —going on the air with a weekly broadcast, advising her listeners about domestic problems. The programme is a huge success, but meanwhile the Joneses get tangled up in some pretty serious domestic problems of their own —what with Jack planning to elope and Dad plunging his own and the whole town’s savings into a mineral water investment scheme which turns out to he a. phony. How Mrs. Jones, with the whole family rallying to her side manages to save the situation from complete disaster offers an exciting climatic proof that there is indeed, “Safety in Numbers.” Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane. Spring Byington, Russell Gleason, Ken Howell, George Ernest, June Carlson, Florence Roberts ami Billy Mahan, have their usual family assignments, while Marvin Stephens, Iva. Stewart and Henry Kolker complete the cast. The associate feature, “Gambling Ship.” is a timely, action-filled drama hi which a. special investigator uses

motion pictures to trap a. crooked gambling ring. Robert Wilcox, who plays an undercover man posing as a gangster; Helen Mack, as a beautiful young gambling ship owner; Ed. Brophy, as a comedy thug; Joseph Sawyer, as an ex-prizefighter and loyal bodyguard, and Irving Pichel, as a scholarly gang leader, have leading roles. Action starts off when a speed-boat explosion sets the stage for a gamblingwar that ends only after a series of mishaps and misunderstandings between a romantic pair, the investigator and the girl who operate a floating casino in open defiance of a powerful mob.

High-seas romance and an expose of red-handed racketeering in the gamb- ' ling game provide dramatic highlights in the story. ’Phone 601 for all reservations. BLOCKADE. The stark reality of what could come to pass in any country to-day by warfare, even possibly on the happy and peaceful shores of this fair Dominion of ours, are the grim warnings contained in “Blockade,” which commences its season at the Regent Theatre, this week-end. This stirringproduction depicts a new kind of warfare. the starvation and suffering of women and children. “Blockade” screening anywhere could not be released at a more opportune time, as it comes when world peace rests on a hair-trigger. The production, which features Henry Fonda and Madeline Carroll, one of the most beautiful of Hollywood’s British acquisitions, has Spain as its background in the year 1936. It is not a film of propaganda, but a. plea for peace, and it will displease only those with a warlike attitude. Though set in Spain, it straddles the issues of the war. and attacks the subject of war with reeds instead of bayonets. There is nothing to throw the blame for the starving of the civilian population on the butchery from the air on either the Spanish Government or the Rebels. Both sides do these things. This impersonal approach, while wise commercially, enfeebles the attack on war. Yet how welcome is its supplication for peace is shown by the effect when Henry Fonda, at the close of the picture, addresses the audience directly, appealing to the conscience of the world to awaken and put a stop to war —“war is murder.” “Blockade” is earnest and urgent. It is downright in its argument, and the scenes it shows are pitiable enough almost to move a dictator's heart. One of the strongest and most graphic uses of the camera is made by the eminent director, William Dieterle, when he surveys the dumb, agonised, starving faces of women and children who, in a beleagured town, have just seen a food ship sunk by a submarine. Many striking incidI cuts go to the making of a splendidly] produced film which, however, is mainly a story of love and spies. It is also a story of love and adventure for the main artists. Henry Fonda, who has the eyes of a dreamer, is fittingly east as a peasant farmer who becomes a ! soldier in the defence of his laud. Mad- . eieine Carroll plays a spy who repents when she beholds the suffering of civ- : Ilians. and .John Halliday plays the ■ Master Spy with a drawling, sneering casualness. but with little suggestion .< of menace. Reginald Denny plays the : Bertie Wooster type of comedian and]. 1 at the same time a war correspondent, 11 which is tin inconsistency, of character, p