AMUSEMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 231, 12 September 1934, Page 11

AMUSEMENTS

STATE THEATRE, HASTINGS.

"FOOR FRIGHTENED PEOPLE" “Four Frightened People”, which is now playing at the State Theatre, should hold the audience spellbound with one eye-filling surprise after another. Two men and two women escape from a Dutch steamer on which bubonic plague has broken out and start their journey to civilisation through the Malay jungle. Their gradual reversion to trie primitive provides some highly novel situations. Claudette Colbert is outstanding with one of the most colourful roles of her career, that of a prudish school teacher whom the two men at first consider in their wav. When the jungle causes her to blossom into a wild, beautiful creature, the men start fighting over her. Herbert Marshall and William Gargan give, splendid performances as the marooned rubber chemist and newspaper correspondent who fight over Claudette's charms. while Mary Boland, in a deft comedy characterisation, walks away with many of the honours of the picture. Leo Carrillo, displays splendid ability in the role of a half caste guide. ARCADIA THEATRE .JACK OAKIE COMEDY Waterfront sweethearts spar with the Navy’s ace fighters in a spicy, racy comedy, “Sailor Be Good’’, at the Arcadia Theatre to-night, with Vivienne Osborne as Red, the sailor sweetheart of Jonesy, played by Jack Oakie. Tho story unreels side-splitting laughs with touches of romantic drama. Red was another port girl, until Jonesy debarked from the U.S.S. Tacoma, and chose her. A gin-drinking, hard-fighting tar, he never trained for his forthcoming boxing bouts. Red fell so deeply in love with him that she was willing to give him up if it meant no drink and serious training for the Pacific Fleet championship—his only real chance at success Miss Osborne is a sincere rough-and-ready sailors' girl. Jack Oakie is his 'usual sparkling self, revealing his smile-provoking teeth when not cracking wise with friends or with Aliss Osborne. REGENT THEATRE “SORRELL AND SON” A classic of literature, and a classic of the silent sermon. Warwick Deoriing’g “Sorrell and Son” is now before the public at the Regent Theatre—this time in the form oi a talking film made by British and Dominions at Boreham Wood. There has never been made a more strikingly successful emotional drama than the silent film—and it is safe to predict that a similar reception awaits the new version. The star of the silent version, H. B. Warner, plays the part of Sorrel) once more in the talkie version, thus making his British film debut. He brings to the talkie a new attraction—namely, a rich and eloquent English speaking voice, which, supplementing his complete mastery of screen technique and his ability to register all shades of emotion, brings it about that his characterisation of Sorrell stands out undoubtedly as one of tho great pictures of the year.

Tho action of tho story covers London and two country districts, known as Staunton and Wistonbury. The country scenes were shot in the Cotswold village of Broadway, Worcestershire, while the Pelican Hotel, where Sorrell finds fortune, is actually a beautiful Broadway hotel, dating Back to the seventeenth century—the famouswLygon Arms. In this way one of the most beautiful stretches of English countryside figures in the film, and adds considerably to its pictorial value. The supporting parts are played by a mammoth east. Kit, tlio son, is taken by Peter Penrose and Hugh Williams. Winifred Shotter appears as Molly Pentreath and Sorrell’s exwife is played by Margot Grahame. COSY THEATRE “SIX OF A KIND” Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, W. C. Fields, Alison Skipworth and George Burns and Gracie Allen, Paramount’s leading comedians, are responsible for the funniest picture of the season, “Six of a Kind”, now playing at the Cosy Theatre. The story concerns the ridiculous adventures which overtake fwo simple souls who start out on their second honeymoon. Ruggles and Mary Boland start on their second honeymoon. To defray expenses, she advertises for another couple to drive with them, and Burns and Allen with a large dog answer the advertisement. As an employee of a bank, Ruggles innocently gets mixed up in a b/ink swindle, and he has the valueless stock of a defunct gold mine thrown in his lap. Then, with George Burns and Gracie Allen throwing laughs in his way all along, and witJi W. C. Fields and Alison Skipworth waiting at the end of their journey, his second honeymoon turns into a complicated mixture of laughs and troubles