AMUSEMENTS

Grey River Argus, 20 January 1940, Page 12

AMUSEMENTS

Opera House NOW SHOWING: “SAN FRANCISCO.” The star studded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer spectacular musical drama “San Francisco,” co-starring Jeanette McDonald, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, will again thunder across the screen of the Opera House, to-day, to-night, also to-mor-row, and Monday. This musical romance gives Miss McDonald her widest scope in vocal numbers on the screen, a total of nine presentations, ranging from a solemn hymn to the most beautiful operatic arias. Gable returns to the vigorous type of role that first elevated him to stardom as a blustering Barbary Coast gambling baron, who has no faith in anything but his own power and his charm with women. Co-starring with Gable and Miss McDonald is Spencer Tracey in the role of a priest; the cast also includes Jack Holt, Ted Healy, Jessie Ralph and Shirley Ross. _ San Francisco laid in the colourful period of 1905-1906, its life of .gaiety and song, its Barbary Coast prior to and through the disaster that levelled the famous Golden Gate‘city 30 years ago. The songs contained in the picture are the "Jewel Song,” from Faust; musical excerpts throughout the Faust opera, “The Prison Trio,” with Mephistopheles and Faust; an aria from “La Traviata;” “Love Me and the World is Mine”; “Would You”; “My Heart is Free;” Gounod’s “Ave Maria;” “Nearer My God to Thee;” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “San Francisco.” Other rollicking musical features of the period are contributed by Shirley Ross. The story deals with a homeless girl who finds herself in the boisterous Barbary Coast, and who rises from an entertainer in Gable’s gambling resort and cafe, to great heights as a famous opera star in San Francisco’s historic Grand Opera House. Elaborate settings are typical of the period and reproduce many of the famous structures destroyed in the 1906 disaster. The catastrophe scenes showing the destruction of the city by fire''find earthquakes are 'the most thrilling shots recorded in motion pictures.

REGENT: NOW SHOWING—“THE HOUND OF THE BASKER VILLES.”

'T'bat matchless sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, is brought to vivid life on the screen by the distinguished Basil Rathbone, who shares top billing with Richard Greene and Wendy Barrie in 20th Century-Fox’s thrilling production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” The classic, one of literature’s most shocking, spine-chilling mystery stories, has been transferred to celluloid with thrilling realism. For background, the picture has perfectly reproduced the misty, fog-shrouded moor in England’s Devonshire country, where a fiendish, ghostly hound is believed to wander, leaving a terrifying trail of horror and chilling the blood of the countryside with its unearthly howls. On Dartmoor’s edge stands the gloomy old Baskerville mansion, to which young Sir Henry Baskerville (Richard Greene) has come from Canada to claim his inheritance. It has been closed since the mysterious death of his Uncle Charles. Preoccupied with his whirlwind romance with his pretty neighbour, Beryl Stapleton (Wendy Barrie), Sir Henry laughs at the stories about-the hound. But Dr Mortimer (Lionel Atwill) and his spiritualist wife (Beryl Mercer) have clues to Sir - Charles’s murder that send them to the great Sherlock Holmes, and his equally famous aide; Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce). Holmes enters the. case and, after a aeries of spine-tingling developments, his amazing deductions result in the tracking down of the strange beast and the solution of the mystery 1 of the moors just in time to save Sir Henry from his uncle’s fate. “The Hound of the Baskervilles” is another feather in the cap of Darryl F. Zanuck. Sidney Lanfield did a grand job of direction from Ernest Pascal’s splendid script, and every member of the great cast, which also includes John Carradine, Barlowe Borland, Morton Lowry and

Ralph Forbes, turns in a first-rate performance.

TWO COMEDY PRODUCTIONS BY CELEBRITY COMEDY COY.

The Celebrity Comedy Company will present to Greymouth audiences on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, January 29, 30, and 31, two of the funniest shows ever written, “Charley’s Aunt” and “Are You A Mason?” Both shows proved an instantaneous success when this brilliant company toured the North Island and which are at present touring the South Islad. The company includes a number of well-known artists whojiave touied New Zealand with all. 7he leading successes. The leading comedian, Don Nicol, needs no introduction, having appeared with “The White Horse Inn” and “Balalaika” Companies. The beautiful Australian film star, Shirley Ann Richards, who is making her first tour of New Zealand and will be remembered by her work in “Lovers and Luggers,”' “Tall Timbers,” a’d “Dad and Dave Come to Town,” playing opposite 4,0 Bert Bailey, has T .ne feminine lead. Phil Smith, who is well and favourably remembered, was the principal comedian with the Royal Comic Opera Company. Charlie Albert was with “The White Horse Inn” Company. Mary Duncan, Leal Douglas and Althea Siddons were last seen in New Zealand with Irene Purcell in the much-talked of “The Women.” Maisie Wallace, was with the “Hollywood Hotel.” Norman Barrington is a newcomer from London, where he appeared with sucn wenknown artists as Matheson Lang, Dame Sybil Thorndike and Sir Seymour Hicks. Lane Patterson is also making his first appearance in NewZealand and hails from the London stage. “Charlie’s 'Aunt” has been in the past, and will always be one of the most popular of comedies. The second comedy, “Are You A Mason?" is, if anything, more amusing than “Charlie’s Aunt,” and it should keep audiences laughing from start to finish. The box plan is now open at Kilgour’s.