AMUSEMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 107, 19 April 1933, Page 11

AMUSEMENTS

MUNICIPAL THEATRE AND COSY THEATRE, HASTINGS. “JEWEL ROBBERY” A two-fold interest and importance attaches to Warner Bros.’ “Jewel Robbery,” the brilliant Viennese romantic melodrama which opens at the Cosy Talkies and the Municipal Theatres tonight. First and foremost, it marks the screen reunion of William Powell and Kay Francis after a lapse of many months . Secondly, because “Jewel Robbery” has fascinated and amused the theatre-goers of two continents with its wit, its sauve, subtle satire, and its gay, polished rascality. in translating this unusual drama to the screen Warner Bros, have stopped at nothing to surround their two stars with a perfect cast. William Powell and Kay Francis are each stars in their own right. Yet so enthusiastic were both over the leading roles of “Jewel Robbery’ that they fairly cheered the suggestion of the production heads of the studio that they costar in the picture. Powell is a polished, debonair bandit who gracefully eludes the smartest police agents of Europe. Kay Francis is the spoiled wife of Vienna’s richest banker, whose proud boast it is that no man can give her the thrill that a new jewel affords her. The afternoon that her doting husband is about to purchase for her a celebrated diamond, at Vienna’s most exclusive jeweller’s is the afternoon that “The Robber” has chosen to pay the same jeweller a professional visit. Even while she is reing robbed, the Baroness forgets her passion for precious stones in her admiration for the aristrocratic outlaw who so gallantly relieves her of her jewels, as a mere incident to the looting of the shop. Her heart, she finds to her horror and delight, is irrecoverably gone. She finds she has been robbed of more than her jewels. Done in a mood of romantic whimsicality and daring that lends to every situation pace and sparkle, the story never slows up for a second. ARCADIA TALKIES, HASTINGS DOUBLE ENGLISH BILL Every advantage has been taken of the twists and turns of the mystery in Edgar Wallace’s “Whiteface,’’ made by Gainsborough British Lion at the Beaconsfield Studio, and due at the Arcadia to-night. A hold-up crook, who wears a white mask when raiding restaurants and relieving women of their jewels, works so rapidly and mysteriously that Scotland Yard is puzzled. An . inexplicable murder is committed at Tidal Basin, and during their investigations one of the police is assaulted by “Whiteface,’’ which seems to definitely connect him with the murder. Mystery is piled upon mystery so cleverly that it is some time before the police are able to connect a suspect with the crime. This picture of thrills holds the viewer nonplussed until the very end. The cast is one of the finest assembled for a British picture. The second picture is “Lord Babs,” another Gainsborough film. This happiest of adaptions of Keble Howard’s most successful of farces, which was first produced at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, with Billy Merson and Angela Baddeley as the featured players, marks a yet further stride forward in British film production. Produced by Walter Forde for Gainsborough Pictures, it enjoys the advantage of a happily- chosen cast, and embodies marked ingenuity in its mounting. Bobby Howes, now starring in “For the Love of Mike,” and laughably remembered for, among other film roles, his part in “Third Time Lucky,” has a part that fits him like a glove. So, too, has the lovely Jean Colin who, at the time of writing, plays an important part in the revival of “La Poupee.” Pat Paterson, as Helen, is another happilychosen role, among others which are filled with delightful appropriateness. The “gadgets” are original and ingenious, the “gags” a succession of laughs, the musical numbers are tuneful—- “ Babies on Parade,” with the inspiring music of H.M. Welsh Guards, is in every way delightful—and there is reason to believe that “Lord Babs” will afford relaxation and happiness to a laughter-loving world.