ENTERTAINMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1946, Page 10

ENTERTAINMENTS

OPERA HOUSE.—Finally To-night: “Wild Bill Hickok Rides,” and “Mamma Loves Papa.” To-mor-row (Friday): “Wonder Man.”

“Wonder Man,”, starring Danny Kaye, commencing at the Opera House to-morrow, romps through a kaleidoscope adventure of romance, music, dancing and convulsing comedy all fashioned to marvellous effect. Kaye is given ample opportunity to trot out his whole bag' of tricks, and seizes it with both hands and turns in a performance which stamps ’him as the entertainer extraordinary, especially in the vivid and fantastic Balinese jive ballet. Kaye has the dual role of Buzzy Bellew and Edwin Dingle, identical twins who follow .widely "divergent occupations, Buzzy being a night club performer and Edwin an erudite bookworm. Buzzy is murdered at the behest of a ganster.-Ten Grand Jackson (Steve Cochrane), by Torso (Edward Brophy) and Chimp (Allen Jenkins), and Buzzy’s spirit goes in search of his twin, Edwin. When Buzzy finds Edwin he urges Edwin to impersonate him so as to bring Ten Grand to justice. When Edwin points out that he knows nothing of night club entertaining, Buzzy tells him he will enter his body whenever necessary and make him go through all the motions and become, in effect, Buzzy himself. The romantic complications of this arrangement are apparent, since Buzzy is engaged to his dancing partner, Midge Mallon (Vera Ellen), and Edwin is in love with a pretty librarian, Ellen Shanley (Virginia Mayo), and both ladies are given ample grounds for breaking off their romances to a couple of guys who, on occasion, behave like lunatics! How everything is smoothed out is ingeniously and hilariously told.

REGENT THEATRE—FinaIIy Tonight: “Background to Danger.” Commencing to-morrow: “In Our Time.”

. One of the most human, most moving, and most unusual love stories “In Our Time,” commences to-morrow at the Regent Theatre. For Ida Lupine, this is a new type of role. She plays the young girl who became the wife of a Polish nobleman. She'•represents the modern generation, and brings forth fresh air into the stiff, aristocratic surroundings. Paul Henreid, the Polish Count, portrays the type of man who will build the new post-war world. A young girl meets a Polish Count in a small antique shop in Warsaw. They fall in love, and no matter'how his family objects, he is determined t® marry her. The couple are happy, despite the obvious hostility of his ■ old-fashioned family. Their estate is neglected, and they have plans to make it pay. But the war breaks out, and destroys all their careful planning. The young husband has to leave for the front. Left alone, she carries on as best she can, until he comes home wounded. The enemy is nearing, and his family plans to escape, but the young couple stays to fight the invading Germans to the end. Nancy Coleman highlights her screen career in the part of a haughty, aristocratic girl. ;