ENTERTAINMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 January 1944, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

OPERA HOUSE —Tb-night: “Pierre of the Plains” and “Castle in ths Desert.”

Pierre, beloved rogue of the famous stage play, comes to the screen in new adventures in the Canadian North-west in “Pierre of the Plains,” swashbuckling romance .of the wilds, showing at the Opera House to-night, with John Carroll playing the sanguinary French-Can-adian adventurer, teamed with Ruth Hussey, who puts glamour into her first outdoor adventure role. The' story follows the adventures 01 Pierre as he befriends the Indians, breaks up a marriage for the heroine, whom he later wins, helps hex- brother, falsely accused of murder, to escape from the Royal Mounted Police, and, after- other- escapades, fights and comical episodes extricates himself from a murdercharge by his naive wit. Carroll and Bruce Cabot stage a thrilling hand-to-hand battle, and otherthrills interlace the romance and comedy. “CASTLE IN’THE DESERT”

Charlie Chan is on the trail again in “Castle in the Desert,” showing at the Opera House. Sidney Toler portrays the suave Oriental sleuth in the thrill-packed mystery drama laid in the arid wastes of the Mojave Desert. It is the strange story of an eccentric millionaire and his nobly born wife, descendant of the famous 14th Century Borgais. When two house guests suddenly are stricken and the finger of suspicion points to poison, things begin to happen. The ingenious detective is called in to solve a mystery so strange it almost stops him.

REGENT THEATRE—To-night: “The Corsican Brothers.”

“The Corsican Brothers,” one of the strangest stories ever written bv the great master of romantic adventure, Alexander Dumas, is showing at the Regent Theatre. Douglas Fairbanks, junr., in the dual role of the twin brothers who seek revenge for the wrongs done their family by the Corsican tyrant of one hundred years ago, has no easy task. He is required to create two separate characters who are different, yet alike in most respects. One, brought up in luxury, is a gay young man of the world. The other, raised in the wilds of Corsica, is a dour and forbidding personality. The twins are invisibly bound to each other for life—yet worlds apart and enemies to death—living, loving and fighting as one man, each feeling the other’s pain and joy. Fairbanks manages to convey their likenesses as well as their differences with an authenticity that is astounding. The production is highly spectacular and awesome, and the story vivid and exciting.

PLAY CENTRE AT RUNANGA

In keeping with its objective of establishing a play centre for preschool age children, the Runanga Community Week Committee has arranged for a series of talks to mothers next week, by the wellknown child psychologist and olay centre specialist, Miss D. E/ Dolton, M.A., who will conduct a play centre for children aged two to five years every afternoon from 12.45 to 3.15, at the Runanga School. All the expenses of the play centre are being met from the Community Week funds, and mothers will find that atendance at the lectures will bo well worthwhile, and that children will enjoy the play centre. Miss Dolton, a native of London, studied social problems and worked among children in England before coming to New Zealand, where for some years she has been closely associated with the play centre movement. In Christchurch, Miss Dolton is President of the Play Centre Association, which conducts seven play centres, and is a lecturer at High Schools, Technical Colleges, W.E.A. classes’, and the radio on child development work.