AMUSEMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 10, 22 December 1933, Page 11

AMUSEMENTS

SATIRE AT ARCADIA “GRAND SLAM” Bridge players of chronic variety as well asnon-bridge players will be folding their tables temporarily and trooping down to the Arcadia Theatre to see themselves as others see them when tho First National picture, “Grand Slam,” open to-day. Having held the mirror up to almost every other large phase of American life, the movies are now making the picture complete by building a story on the very prevalent habit, or epidemic, of bridge playing. The all-absorbing seriousness with which the game is taken provides a. source of excellent satire which this picture utilises to good, entertaining advantage. In building up this story, Warner Bros, has given the picture added brilliance through casting many important players jn it. Paul Lukas, as the bridgeplaying waiter, and Loretta Young, as his wife, are reported to give excellent performances. A goodly amount of fine comedy is also provided by Frank McHugh and Glenda Farrell in prominent supporting roles. Tho manner in which the drugsmuggling traffic is being combatted by the American Government is vividly shown in “Soldiers of the Storm,” a Columbia production, also at the Arcadia. The locale of the story is near tho Mexican line, where the Border Patrol is stationed to prevent the illicit shipment of narcotics across the border. As an under-cover member of the Patrol, Regis Toomey is sent to unearth the leader of. a gang of smugglers who have been unusually active in that section of the country’. DRAMA AT THE COSY “MEN MUST FIGHT” Something new in screen production is offered by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer in “Mon Must Fight,” starring Diana Wynyard, with Lewis Stone,, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, and Ruth Selwyn, at the Cosy Theatre this change. This studio, which has contributed such big puctures as “Ben Hur,” “The Big Parade” and “Grand Hotel,” now presents a picture which attempts to depict conditions in this country at the outbreak of a new war, presumably in 1940. Contrasting the war of the past with the war of the future, the story mainly concerns the efforts of a woman who has lost her lover through one war, to prevent her son from being forced into service through false patriotism. By picturing the warfare of the future, it becomes a powerful and stirring dramatic argument against war. The picture is based on the play which caused widespread comment when produced on Broadway. In deciding to bring the play to the screen, M-G-M’s production minds enlarged upon possibilities which the stage producers, either through choice or the natural limitations of the speaking, stage, passed up The things which, on the stage, were merely talked about—the outbreak of the war in 1940 with a spectacular air raid—the changes in styles and architecture—these are the things which the film version particularly stresses.

REVUE AT MUNICIPAL “MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS.” Picked by a distinguished group of American artists and illustrators as Broadway’s “fifty most perfect show girls,” a chorus seldom equalled for beauty and precision either on stage or screen, appears in “Moonlight and Pretzels,” the Universal screen musical comedy playing at the Municipal Theatre to-night and at the Cosy on Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The fifty lucky chorines were selected from the combined ensembles of New York musical comedy triumphs, “Strike Me Pink,” “Take a Chance,” and “The Gay Divorce,” by a jury of feminine beauty experts composed of James Montgomery Flagg, John La Gatta, Russell Patterson, Jefferson MacHamer, Arthur William Brown, and Hal Phyfe. The girls were trained and put through their paces before the cameras than none other than Bobby Connolly, America’s premier dance director, whose clever and intricate routines have contributed to the success of scores of New York musical comedy revue hits. What is undoubtedly the greatest galaxy of stage, screen and radio stars ever brought together in one show appears in “Moonlight and Pretzels.” Bogey Pryor, who triumphed as tho columnist in the stage production of “Blessed Event,” Mary Brian, Leo Carrillo, Lilian Miles, Alexander Gray, Bernice Claire, the Four Eton Boys, and Frank and Milt Britton’s famous comedy band are only a few of the headliners that appear in the picture which Karl Freund and Monte Brice codirdected-