AMUSEMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 80, 18 March 1935, Page 10

AMUSEMENTS

HASTINGS PICTURES STATE THEATRE. “THE WHITE I’AUADE” At the State Theatre to-day will be shown “The White Parade,” Starring John Boles and Loretta Young. This is a story dealing with the training ot candidates tor the nursing profession—telling their trials and disappointments and vividly showing what an heroic breed they are. It is a story with a soul! “The White Parade’' may solely be described as an extraordinary picture. Extraordinary not only in its material, but the telling of the story. Jt is a gripping and a poignant drama, and the manner of its presentation—buoyant, easy, skilful—is a dist inch contribution to screen history. Loretta Young offers a masterly performance as the young student nurse who is the heroine. The film follows her schooling from tho day oi her enrolment, until just graduated, the has to make her choice between the man she loves, John Boles, and the service whose true meaning lias become every day more clear to her. John Boles contributes a splendid characterisation as the rich young suitor who. baffled by the elusive secret of these girl nurses, seeks to persuade her that her life lies with him. There are memorable performances also by Dorothy Wilson, Muriel Kirkland and Astrid Alhvyn, among the heroine’s comrades, and by Jane Harwell and Sara Haden, as veteran nurses who are their superiors. REGENT THEATRE. “THE PAINTED VEIL’’ If there hag l>een any doubt about Greta Garbo’s long-standing reputation as tho greatest film star of them all, it has been definitely (settled by her newest production, “The Painted Veil,’’ which screens at the Regent Theatre to-day. In “The Painted Veil,” a tensely dramatic story of marital conflict in the heart of a cholera-plagued province in the Chinese interior, Garbo rises to greater height# than in any of her previous pictures—not excluding her last, “Queen Christina.” As Katherine bane the bride of a serious-minded British doctor who combats the Chinese cholera, Garbo appears more glamorous, more beautiful and a finer dramatic actress —if such is possible—than ever before. The gripping story, from the pen of the master story-teller, Somerset Maugham, begins in the dreary home of an Austrian scientist and, following the star’s marriage to a young British doctor, it ascends to most gripping episodes of love, hatred and sacrifice. Tho picture, fraught, with the mystery and intrigue of the Orient, serves as an admirable successor to Garbo’s last production, “Queen Christina,” which brought her out of seclusion after an absence of two years from the screen. “The Painted Veil” also introduces to the theatre world a new leading man for Garbo, Herbert Marshall.

COSY THEATRE “SING AS WE GO” Gracie Fields, the Lassie from Lancashire, has one of the biggest followings in New Zealand, of any star, so there will be rejoicing that her latest picture is screening at the Cosy to-day. in “Sing as We Go,” Gracie, as in all her pictures, introduces a large number of new songs. They are: “Love,” “Sing as we Go,” “Sing a Catchy Little Tunc” and “In My Little Bottom Drawer.” The plot of “Sing as We Go” is a happy-go-lucky affair that suits Gracie’s style of comedy. She is out oi work and willing to try anything. The first job she does manage to get is that of a fortune teller’s assistant. This is a success until her prophecies become too startling. Then she attempts to qualify as a magician. Her chief appoints her tho Vanishing Lady, but she mistakes her exits and entrances and after vanishing emerges into a cowboy act when they are all shooting off revolvers. These are only a few of the embarrassing situations into which the author, J. B. I’riesly, manages to get the poor unfortunate Gracie, but every one of them leads to the amusement of the public. The east of this comedy includes John Loder and Dorothy Hyson.

ARCADIA THEATRE DOU BLE-FE AT UR E PROG R A MME. A mystery melodrama as tight in construction, as vivid and tense as any that the screen has offered in many months, “Gambling” screens to-day at the Arcadia Theatre. This thrilling screen drama was adapted from George M. Cohan’s successful stage play and has Cohan as its star. “Gambling” is a colourful, ably directed and splendidly acted mystery melodrama, rapidly paced from its opening to its smashing, breathless climax. It is vastly entertaining and exciting screen fare, acted with zest and no little charm by the star aad a splendid supporting cast headed by Wynne Gibson and Dorothy Burgess. The company also includes Walter Gilbert, Ted Newton, Cora Witherspoon, Percy Ames and Harold Healy. Also on tho programme is “Right of Way,” starring Conrad Nagel, Loretta Young and Fred Koehler. Nagel takes the part ot a criminal lawyer, who has cleared Koehler of a charge of murder. That night the lawyer meets with an accident and loses his memory. Ho is found by Koehler, who is a trapper, who takes him to his cabin in the Canadian woods. There, he meets Loretta Young, and the story evolves through several dramatic incidents.