FILM AND STAGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 90, 14 March 1935, Page 10

FILM AND STAGE

Riot of Tuneful Fun. Something startlingly different m the way of musical pictures will be offered to the picture theatre-goers in Erich Pommer’s initial Fox Film production, “Music in the Air,” according to all advance accounts. The film comes to the State Theatre on Saturday next. Not only is the picture one of the first read operettas to be presented on the screen, as distinguished from the ordinary type of filmed musical comedy; but it promises to be one of the funniest offerings, musical or otherwise, ever to come out of filmland. The extraordinarily successful stage production shattered, all depression records by running continuously on Broadway for 11 months, and continuing lor four more in Chicago. This was due largely to the fact that it introduced an unusual amount ol comedy in its tuneful story. Gloria Swanson and John Boles, who are seen as a pair of highly temperamental and jealous operatic stars, are both famous for their comedy abilities, and the picture offers them their greatest opportunities in this field. Douglass Montgomery, who soared to stardom ns a dramatic actor in “Little Man, What Now?” abundantly proved his talents as a comedian in earlier vehicles, and June Lang. Fox Film’s “mystery girl,” is hailed as a brilliant- comedienne b> those who have seen her “rushes” to date. Besides these four principals, the c?6t includes A 1 Shean, of the noted Gallagher and SJiean team of comics; Reginald Owen, the well-known British actor; Joseph Cawthron. one of the screen’s leading comedy character-actors; Sara Hadon, Hobart Bosworth, Marjorie Main, Jed

Uronty, Christian Rub, : Roger Inihof and Ferdinand Miiriier—all outstanding for their abilities as laugh-pro-viders. Glamour of a Thief. “One Exciting Adventure,” which brings Binnie Barnes, the glamorous new star, 'to the screen-'in her second Universal production; will he shown for the first time, at the Kosy Theatre starting on Saturday. Played against a gay Continental background, the picture js regarded as one of the most thrilling and sparkling offerings of the year. TVith Miss Barnes, who won world-wide acclaim with her performances in “Henry VHP’ and with Douglas Fairbanks in “The Private Life of Don Juan.” is a brilliant cast headed by Neil Hamilton and Paul Cavanagh witli Eugene Pallette and Grant Mitchell as the bungling detectives, Edna Searl, Jason Roba.rds, Ferdinand Gottschalk, G. P. Huntley, junr., Henry Kollier, Doris Lloyd, Dick winslow, Edward Keane and William Worthington. The story is that of the most glamorous diamond thief in Europe. Also featured on the programme is “Hell Cat,” with Robert Armstrong and Ann Sotliern. “The Dark Angel,” in which Ronald Cohnan played opposite Vilma Banky in a silent version, is to be made again. Sydney Franklin will direct, but the lest of the cast has still to be chosen. “Sixteen,” Aimes and Phillip Stuart’s sensitive, study of adolescence, was read by the Thespians at Wellington recently. The play chosen for the next reading is “Another Language,” by Rose Francken. Colin Tapley, of Dunedin, has a featured role in Miriam Hopkins’s new picture “Becky Sharpe,” which is being filmed in technicolour. Another New Zealhnder in the cast is May Beatty, who will be remembered by theatregoers in this ■ country. Mr Tapley recently appeared in “Lives of a. Bengal Lancer.” and also had- a small part in “Limehouse Blues.” May Beatty has been appearing in “bits” for some'time, but none of her film work has been very conspicuos. She is a capable actress and is worthy of more important notice. Miss Beatty’s 18-year-old daughter, Hinemoa (“Bunny”), who appeared in one or two scenes in Anna Sten’s first picture, “Nana,” will also be seen in ‘‘Becky Sharpe.”

A Great English Actor. “When we got a look at the finisher picture, we would have sold the rights to ‘Henry the Eighth' for a Ha’ penny. . .” Charles Laughton pushed ii long strand of hair back from his forehead -with an impatient gesture “We liked it but never dreamed il would be a popular success.” Laughton, distinguished English actor whe won world recognition as Henry th< Eighth of England, was standing or “l lie Barretts of Wimpole Street” set waiting to make his first Americar screen appearance since' winning the Motion Picture Academy Award o: 1933 —the highest honour the film in dustry can bestow on its artists —when interviewed. In the new film coming to the Regent Theatre on Saturday Charles Laughton plays the role of the sinister father. Frederic March essayt the role of Robert Browning. “Korda and 1 decided to mako ‘Henry’ while \vu were eating dinner in Paris one night. I don’t remember whether it was my idea or his.” Neither of them, though, had much money, lie said. They assembled a cast that waived salary- for a share in any profits- —which soemed dubious at the time. The world acclaim which followed the release of the film, and Laughton’s per-

sonal triumph in it, are now matters of motion picture history. Comedy, Romance, Music. “Music in the Air,” the delightful spectacle which opens at the State Theatre on Saturday, is a screen achievement in every sense of the word, combining magnitude with uproarious comedy, tender romance with a magnificent musical score. In its musical setting alone, the film has never been surpassed, for Jerome Kern, a foremost American composer of light music, has contributed the score. Gloria Swanson, returning to pictures after a two years’ absence, records a performance which will astonish even her most ardent admirers. She sings, she rages, she makes love, she plays light comedy with the deftest touch in the world. It is a gorgeous characterisation. John Boles, oppo- ( site her ill the role of the light opera tenor, has many splendid opportunities to lift his splendid voice in song —and what song! Moreover, he performs light comedy as if he had enjoyed nothing else so much in all his life.

The Auckland Little Theatre Society will open the 1935 season on April 6 with “The Rose Without a Thorn,” a play by Clifford Bax. Miss Hepburn is taking a leaf out of the Garbo book and being billed simply as “ Hepburn” in announcements of “Tlie Little Minister.” Ivan Menzies, the Savoy Opera comedian, will sail for Australia on March 22 with three objects in view. They are: To appear on the stage under the direction of the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Company; to expound tlie objects of the Oxford Group Movement to revitalise the Christian religion; to found a colony on a Barrier Reef islet he has bought. A dilapidated copy of a 1901 mailorder catalogue played a greater role than Fate had originally intended for it and became the most valuable book at the studio during the filming of “Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,” featuring Pauline Lord, W. C. Fields and Zasu Pitts. Dog-eared and . worn, it was the arbiter of the studio’s picture. All questions of clothing and property were decided by the book. In costuming the principal players and the five “Wiggs” children, in addition to the minor members of the cast, the volume described in detail various types of attire.

Sparkling Entertainment. cl A gay and brilliant comedy “13; s Your Leave,” keeps the audienc chuckling between laughter. 1 d opens at the State Theatre to s night. It is also showing to-mor row. RKO-Radio has given this stvif t moving combination ot fun and ro i- mance a cast in keeping with it 0 sparkling entertainment qualities e Trank Morgan and Genevieve Tobii tl are featured leads as a husband anc ; wife who meet with surprising experi n ences during a marital holiday. Ex e cellent support is accorded by Nei if Hamilton, Marion Nixon, Gleni Anders, Gene . Lockhart, Margare tl Hamilton, Betty Grable, and Charle; g Ray. Henry Smith is in the earl; , and dangerous stages of middle age e He clings to illusions of youth as i g spinster does to hopes of matrimony a and every time a sweet young thing g classes him with the “old folks,” In e suffers the pangs of agony. A lasi t fling is just what he feels he needs 1; And the wife reluctantly agrees. ’ Remarkable Artistry, t- One of the unique features oi h “Twenty Million Sweethearts,” the e First National radio romance, now i- showing at the Regent Theatre, is an introductory broadcast by the Three Radio Rogues, the famous imitators of the eta.rs of the air. The three rogues, Jim Hollingwood, Eddie Bartell and Henry Taylor, have so thoroughly perfected the art of imitating the human voice that it is practically impossible for the listener to tell whether lie is hearing an imitation of the star or listening to the star himself. The remarkable part of their artistry .is the fact that they can not only imitate the speaking voice in any kind of dialect but the exact tone in singing. In “Twenty Million Sweethearts” these three imitate a wide variety of radio talent including the most popular speakers and crooners. Their imitations for the picture include Ben Bcrnie, Russ Colombo, Singing Sam, Morton Downey, Arthur Tracey, the Street Singer, Rudy Vallee, Amos and Andy, Joe Penner, Kate Smith and Bing Crosby. This is but one of the many novel features in the picture which combines comedy drama and romance with the catchiest musical hits of the year. The picture also introduces a new romantic teem in Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers both famous' for thensinging voices as well as acting ability. Amazing Make-up. The playing of dual roles by film actors is not unusual in pictures, but a most amazing double characterisation is enacted by one of the members of the cast in the picture, “The Man With Two Faces,” now showing at the Ivosy Theatre. It is amazing because, while almost always the spectator knows who has the dual role, in this instance it is impossible to detect the man with two faces until he reveals himself by removing his disguise. Percy Westmore, wizard in the art of make-up, provided a blonde wig, moustache and goatee,' whereas practically every member of the cast undersuspicion of the murder on which the plot of the play is based is a brunette. A false nose and false eyebrows add further to the dissemblanca. The contour of the mouth is changed entirely by false teeth inserted over the natural teeth. Also showing with this feature is “The Church Mouse,” with Laura La Plante and lan Hunter. A Mickey Mouse cartoon has been banned in Rumania —on the. ground that it was frightening to children! Charlotte Henry, who came into prominence as Alice in “Alice in ! Wonderland,” has been given the loading feminine part in “Laddie,” opposite John Beal. After an absence of three years in Europe, Victor Varconi has returned to American pictures as a Russian prince in “Roberta.” His last work in Hollywood was ns the Italian commander in “The Lost Battalion.” At a special meeting of the National Theatre Committee in London last month, Lord Lytton announced that the committee had passed a resolution asking him to raise £500,000 for the establishment of a national theatre.. Of this sum the committee already has £150,000 in hand. This year’s award of the League of Nations gold medal, presented by the committee in charge of motion pictures, has been given to King Vidor’s production of “Our Daily Bread.” Special showings of the film are to be sponsored by the League in Geneva and Paris. In “Clive of India,” Ronald Colman’s latest picture, there is a cast of 75 principals and 3000 extras. There were no fewer than sixty casualties during the taking of the scene of the Battle of Plassey when sixty elephants stampeded and demolished the sets.

Alfred Hill’s Australian opera, “Auster,” which has attracted the attention of musicians far outside Australia, will be performed for the first time during the grand opera season in Melbourne, in about three weeks’ time. “Beyond Bengal,” a great film achievement, is due for release very shortly. It is a jungle picture—with a difference. It is more thrilling, more exciting, more daring, than any picture ever screened, and, what is almost unbelievable, every foot of it is real. A film which is causing a stir is “Drake of England,” the talking film version of incidents in the life of England’s greatest admiral, Sir Francis Drake. Matheson Lang, who plays the title role gives, so those who have seen rush sequences say, the best performance of his brilliant career. The New York theatre is an excellent host this season, for a fair proportion of the productions on Broadway are British. In several cases the entire casts are from England. One of the outstanding successes is the visit of the D’Oyly Carte company, which has been sold out at every performance. Noel Coward has two plays running in “Conversation Piece” and, by way of contrast, the tragic “Point Yalaine,” in which Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Osgood Perkins are playing. New York has applauded Sean O’Casey’s “Within the Gates,” which failed at the Royalty, and the Irish players have attracted big audiences. The most popular piece in New York is “The Great W’altz,” which was staged bv Sir Oswald Stoll at the Alhambra under the title of “Waltzes from Vienna.” It is taking 44,000 dollars a week, and Ar-irie Burke plays her original part. Another actress who lias made a persona] hit is Sybil Thorndike in “The Distaff Side.” The gigantic passenger and freight ’planes of the Pan-American Airlines, called “Clipper Ships.” are to be immortalised in an adventure film, Story treatments from the producer’s original idea arc now in preparation by several writers. Negotiations are now under way with the Pan-American Company regarding the use of ’planes and airports. The largest of the giant ships operated by the company are said to have nccommovition for fortv passengers. They fly between New York, Florida, Havana and Rio de Janeiro.

Lavish Music?,l Romance. “Blossom ’Time,” the lavish musical romance of Franz Schubert, starring Kiciiurd Tauber, comes to the Regent Theatre on Saturday, March 23. No greater masterpiece of screen artistry lias ever been produced. No more beautiful, more human story has ever gripped the imagination than this story of Schubert’s love and renunciation of his beloved Vicki. She inspired tho most beautiful music the centuries have recorded—and surely there has never been anything so pathetically lovely than tho spectacle of Schubert, lifting up his magnificent voice to tell of his love to the glorious strains of “Thin© is My Heart.” You forgot it is Tauber’s voice—for Tauber is Schubert—and never lias the screen seen Such a remarkable characterisation 1 Richard Tauber, pre-eminent among present-day singers, “lives” the role of Franz Schubert, and apart from the fact that his resemblance to the great composer is remarkable, lie invests tlie character with a heartwarming sympathy that cannot fail to capture any audience, and his singing is magnificent—a - revelation to even his most ardent admirers. A Queen of Burlesque. “Belle of the Nineties,” coming to the Kosy Theatre on Saturday, March 23, is the third of the Mac Vest starring pictures to come from Paramount, and shows tlie blonde siren again in a setting of tho gay ’9o’s, which was file period of her first picture, “She Done Him Wrong.” Surrounded by three screen sweethearts, Roger Pryor, John Mack Brown, and John Miljan, together with Duke Ellington and his orchestra, Katherine De Mille, Warren Hymer, and Stuart Holmes,

Mae West essays the role of the country’s most sensational burlesque queen of the period. As “American Beauty,” Mao West becomes involved with an ambitious young prize fighter, Roger Pryor, of St. Louis, but, through the plotting of tlie prize fighter’s manager, the romance is broken up, and Mae West accepts an opportunity to leave St. Louis to become queen of a popular gambling palace in New Orleans.

If the result of negotiations now proceeding receives the sanction of the parties involved, Liverpool will have a fine musical centre, costing about £150,000, to replace the famous old Philharmonic Hall, burned down in 1933. Anne Croft, who was “The Girl Friend” in New Zealand some years ago, revived “Tulip Time” successfully at York, England, last month. Her son Peter is in the cast. Robert Flaherty, whose “Man of Aran” is now being shown, has been signed to make a film in India tentatively titled “Elephant Boy.” A complete unit will shortly leave for the Oripnt. Herbert Marshall has. signed a contract calling for three pictures a year. His first assignment is “Morning, Njoou land Night,” opposite Sylvia Sidney. . Hurrying back to Hollywood after a triumphal six months in New York and on tour is Grace Moore. She and her husband, Valentin Parer a, will talk over Grace’s new picture, “On Wings of Song.” “Jolly Roger,” with Gladys Moncrieff, at the Criterion Theatre, Sydney, is to be followed bv “The Cedar Tree,” an Australian play. F. W. Tilling also promises “Merrie England” and “Robbery Under Arms.” With his portayal of that zealous showman P. T. Barntim in “'The Mighty Barniun,” Wallace Beery takes his place in that select company ol specialists in historic roles, and it marks Beery’s fourth appearance in a real life characterisation. In “Robin Hood” he re-created Richard the LionHearted; in “The Bowery” he was Chuck Connors, and in “Viva Villa” he won new audiences with his performance as the blustering Rancho. Marie Tempest, the actress, who in May celebrates her stage jubilee, stated in London recently that when Mr Gladstone advised her not to go on the stage she left him and forgot what he had told her. “My grandmother was a friend of the Gladstones,” she stated, “and when I said I wanted to be an actress Mr Gladstone devoted a ‘speech’ of a quarter-of-an-hour urging me not to do such a thing I “In 50 years I have never been paralysed with stage fright, although I have suffered the usual first-night tremors.”

NOTES AND JOTTINGS. The annual Shakespearean season will commence at the Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, England, at Easter, ’ and will extend over five months, with an American tour to follow.

Lightning, a German shepherd dog, has been chosen as a prominent member of Frankie Thomas’s supporting cast in his new starring picture, “A Boy of Flanders.” It is based on Ouida’s famous ‘story “A Dog of Flanders.” “Ten Minute Alibi” (now being stag- ! ed in New Zealand) is a real challenger to “Charley’s Aunt,” says a London paper. It must have been in and out of half a dozen theatres in its two years of life, and cannot be far short of a thousand performances. Gilbert and Sullivan opera is .to he firesented again this year. J. C. Wiliamson, Ltd., hope to organise a company that will be ready to open its Australian season in May. Molly de Gunst, an Australian singer, who has made a success in grand opera, in dramatic roles such as “La Tosca,” will leave for England shortly for further study. She is to be tendered a farewell concert at Sydney. In her new picture, “Now I’m A Lady,” Mae West conforms with the title and sings an operatic aria. She has selected the beautiful “My Heart At Thy Sweet Voice” fiom the SaintSaons “Samson and Delilah” for her flight into higher music. Just who will sing the famous duet with Miss West has not been determined, but it probably will be one of her numerous leading

men. The operatic selection will be one of a half dozen songs Miss West will sing in the picture. i General S. Savitsky, once a Cossack | commander, plays a Russian doorman role in “Roberta,” which stars Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers. Two thousand extras were employed by Walter Wanger, producer, in his production of “The President Vanishes,” a political war drama. “Kid Millions,” Eddie Cantor’s fifth annual screen musical extravaganza, brings the comedian to the screen as a boy Cinderella of the Brooklyn waterfront who becomes the licir to a fortune in buried treasure in the land of the Pyramids. “Mandy,” the Irving Berlin hit which Eddie Cantor originally introduced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, is revived in one of the elaborate song and girl numbers aboard the liner en route to Egypt. There was a curious coincidence at tlie Globe Theatre, London, recently. At a matinee of Ivor Novello’s play. “Murder in Mayfair,” four Peter Pans were in the theatre —three on the stage and one in the stalls. Fay Compton, Zena Dare, and Edna Best, all of whom appear in the play, have been Peter Pans at various times, and in the stalls, watching them, sat Nina Boucicanlt, the original Peter of the first production. Cyril Vernon lias the opportunity ol displaying his -finished, polished acting in tho role of Lord Farrington in “Sweet Aloes,” the opening production of J. C. Williamson’s New English Company at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne. Mr Vernon was last in Australia and New Zealand about six years ago in “Rookery Nook,” “Cuckoo in the Nest” and “Thark.” He has played many important roles in comedies and farces in London and the provinces. On leaving Australia in 1929, he went back to Tom Walls’s management and played Sir Hector Benbow in “Thark” and similar roles in other farce-comedies under Tom Walls’s regime. Merton Hodge’s comedy, “The Wind and the. Rain,” is a big success in Berlin. It lias li-cen adapted by Detlef Sierck, one of the best translators of English plays, and the piece had the distinction of reopening the Kammerspiele Theatre after it had been closed for months. On© of the notices describes it as “a typical picture of student life wherever it may be, with charming and pleasing dialogue and a lovo story that is as old as time, but which is always fresh,” thus echoing the verdict of London. It is shortly to be done in Vienna. Private advice received in New Zealand indicates that his second play, “Grief Goes Over,” is shortly to be put on the London stage, although Ins first is still enjoying as great a success as ever.