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Greymouth Evening Star, 30 November 1940, Page 5

(Flora Robson) openly berates this exploit, in secret she sends him off to pirate more gold from the Spaniards. They learn, of this plan, trap him in a swamp-infested jungle and imprison him as a galley slave ab’oard a Spanish'vessel. With a dagger .he loosens his shackles and. almost singlehanded overcomes both the galley timekeeper and whipper. ' He then frees his fellow-prisoners, who engage in hand-to-hand fights and duels with the ship’s officers and men. The Sea Hawk takes possession of the ship, and saves the day.and the Navy for England. In. recognition of this, he wins - a knighthood from the Queen, and the love of the Ambassador’s niece.

NEW COMEDY TREND. REVIVAL OF “SLAPSTICK.” At least one good thing is resulting from the present state of the world. Comedy promises to be really funny, not. just amusing. “The day is past when we could afford' to be merely light, gay, or whimsical,”- Alexander Hall, Columbia director, declared. “Now audiences want to roar, not just smile. I should not be surprised to see a wholesale revival of slapstick farce, with people falling downstairs and hitting one another with pies in the good old tradition of Turpin, Keaton, Arbuckle, and other surefire comics.” The reason for the trend, of course, is the wax’ and its attendant grimnefes. People want the other extreme—and Hall means extreme—in entertainment. For illustration the director -mentioned his present Columbia picture, “He Stayed for Breakfast,” and said that he would not have thought of making the film in the same comedy technique a year ago. “Then,” the director explained, “any script for a story of this kind would have been called high comedy of comedy romance. The situations would have been subtle, the action restrained. Emphasis would have been placed on slick dialogue, with the characters spending most of their time sitting around sipping drinks.” The story of “He Stayed For Breakfast” concerns a radically minded waiter, Melvyn Douglas. Fed up with the plutocratic bearing of a wealthy patron, Eugene Pallette, he shoots him, then hides in the victim’s apartment. Loretta Young, Pallette’s wife, is delighted to have another man around. With the police always just around the corner, an unusual romance develops between Douglas and Miss Young, the comedy’s costars. “To make the story in tune with the times,” Hall continued, “we have made every detail so broad you can’t possibly miss the point. For example, when Douglas shoots Pallette—it’s all in fun, of course—the gets him in the little finger. Pallette, like so many of us, has an annoying way of curling his little finger when he raises a cup of coffee to his mouth. When Douglas is pUrsued by the police, he’s chased hither and yon oh rooftops until you might think the old Harold Lloyd was dding the run-, ning. Later, in one long sequence, Douglas dresses in the most absurd feminine garb we could find; a few. I months ago he would have played the sequence in a business suit.”

GINGER ROGERS STARRED. . Ginger Rogers was named by President George J. Schaefer of RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., to star in “Tom, Dick,and. liarry,” which Robert Sisk Will produce as one of the most ambitious features oh the studio’s" 194041 programme. The director will be ; Garson Kanin, who also directed the star in her • comedy hit , of 1939; “Bachelor Mother,” and more recently gained fame for his direction of the Irene Dunne-Cary Grant laughriiaker, “My Favourite Wife.” .. “Torn, Dick and Harry” is a romantic comedy, which calls on Miss

•Rogers •to play a- girl faced” with choosing between three suitors, representing widely divergent, philosophies of living and degrees of wealth—an ambitious salesman, a ahd go-easy gas-station attendant, find a millionaire playboy.

Marx Bros. Next:’ ’ Marion Martin, who recently completed a featured role in “Boom Town,” has been r given a part in the Marx Brothers’: new picture, “Gp West.”. Miss Martin was-, a former Ziegfeld girl and appeared in other Broadway musical attractions. ..