FILM AND STAGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 121, 23 April 1936, Page 7

FILM AND STAGE

Brilliant Musical Drama. I New and unrivalled thrills in song,! dance, . laughter and drama are! brought to the screen by “King of j Burlesque,” the picture now showing' at the State Theatre, which turns the spotlight on a fascinating now world of entertainment. Featuring Warner i Baxter, Alice Faye, Jack Oakio andj Arline Judge, at the head of an allstar cast, the picture tells an absorbing love story of tho people who make entertainment. It follows Baxter’s, rise from the shows of 14th Street to the glittering palaces of Broadway. It traces his decline under the spiteful control of his society wife, played by Mona Barrie. In the climax, the pic-j ture shows how this master of enter- 1 tainment returns to his most speetacu-l lar success and to the realisation that! he had loved Alice Faye all the time. | The picture features a cluster of i brand now tunes from those | wizard composers, Jimmy McHugh and Ted Koehler. “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around,” “Shooting High,” “Lovely Lady” and “Too Good to be True” are the names of some of them. A Sensational Story. - “Rendezvous,” which comes to the Regent Theatre on Saturday, May 2, is the startling, dramatic story of the | U.S. Cryptographic Bureau as told by j the man who organised and headed it ! throughout the World War. Based ' upon Major Herbert 0. Yardley’s sen- j sational best-seller book, “The Ameri-

A Laugh Provoker. A wide assortment of nationalties is represented in tho cast of the comedy, with music, “The Big Broadcast ol 1930,” coming on Monday to the Regent Theatre, and featuring Jack Oukie, Burns and Alien, Lyda Robert!, Wendy Barrie, and the Nicholas: Brothers. “The Big Broadcast ot 1936” is an hilarious comedy romance, sot against the exciting background of radio. Jack Okie and Henry Wadsworth, air entertainers, plan to enter an international broadcasting .contest to save their radio station from bankruptcy. George Burns and his wife, Gracio Allen, bring the boys their television invention, tho Radio Eye,. Lyda Roberti, rich, young and romantic-minded countpss, meets Oukie and Wadsworth and determines to marry one of them. She kidnaps the boys to her mythical kingdom in “üba, where they are her prisoner guests until she can make up her mind which one she wants. Her social secretary, Wendy Barrie, warns them of the countess’s dangerous henchman, C. Henry Gordon. In their frantic at-

can Black Chamber,” it is crammed with the intimate revelations of the secret counter-espionage department, where foreign diplomatic or enemy communications were secretly “tapped,” decoded and deciphered for official information. Through this amazing tale of codes and ciphers, the producers have woven a romance with William Powell as the chief cryptographer and' Rosalind Russell. Powell, aided by his experience in former famous mystery screen plays—such as “The Thin Man,” “Evelyn Prentice”, and “Manhattan Melodrama” —contributes one of his finest screen performances. Rosalind Russell, in her role as Joel Carter, the daughter of the Assistant-Secretary of War, has achieved the Hollywood miracle of ap-

l tempt to escape, they inadvertently s compete in the radio contest when , Oukie broadcasts for help with the r Radio Eye. Many amusing complica- ■ tions are climaxed by a thrilling ■ laugh-provoking chase. ' Drama, Comedy, Music. t America’s favourite baritone, Lawrence Tibbett, returns to the screen in “Metropolitan,” the production ’. I coming soon to the State Theatre, as ; ' the star of a picture that sets new ’J high standards in musical films. In . | the course of the dramatic comedy, . i which traces the adventures of a • i young singer in pursuit of fame and . romance, Tibbett sings selections from ; the operas, ‘“Carmen,” “Pagliacci” • and “The Barber of Seville,” as well

pearing in nine pictures during her nine months as a screen actress and of rising from a comparatively unknown “bit” player to leading woman in less than a year. Binnie Barnes, the cheerful comedienne from London, appears as Olivia, the alluring spy who almost upsets all of Rowell’s secret worn Lionel Atwill steps out of his usual screen villainy to play the role ol Brennan, Britisn atiucne to the Black Chamber, utners in the cast include Samuel Hinds, Sterling Holloway, diaries Grapewin, Henry Stephenson, and Charles 'irowbrulge.

as a duo of popular numbers. Romantic complications beset Tibbett’s path in “Metropolitan,” In love with Virginia Bruce, he cannot reveal his inclinations because Alice Brady loves hini. She is a temperamental prima donna, and Tibbett’s fate, and that of tho company, liang on her good will. The temperamental tantrums of operatic celebrities who surround Tibbett furnish many of the picture’s comedy moments. When Tibbett decides that lie cannot pretend for Miss Brady’s sake any longer, the company faces a crisis, without money or supporters. Tho climax shows how this gallant band of performers rally round their leader and come through with a crashing success.

Lilian Harvey has been signed to muKo another film opposite Willy I 1 litseli.

“New Moon” will be presented by the Auckland Operatic Society in July.

It is estimated, says the New York Alpsical Courier, tljut of the 90U0 Authentically old Italian violins in existence i«,OOU are owned in the United States.

Patsy Kelly has been assigned a featured role in "Servant Girl,” starring Loretta ourig.

When Bionic Hale returns from her holiday. at'lnnsbruck she will start rehearsing for the principal part in the new Drury Lane lir.sical production, says a London paper, ihe play, as yet unnamed, is being adapted by Harry Graham and Desmond Carter trom the German, and Robert Stolz (“Wild Violet” composer) is writing the music. Jack Whiting, who made a success in “Anything Goes,” plays opposite Miss Hale.

“Chinese Gordon,” £ film based onj tin; life and adventures of General; Gordon, will be made by a British; company during 1936. Work' lias already started on the preparation of a scrip which will cover Gordon’s career from the beginning of the; “Taiping” campaign in China—when Gordon, then an officer , of engineers, I virtually saved China from destruction from within and gained the nickname which has ever since preceded his name — to the tragic death at Khartoum, when the General, waiting in| vain for reinforcements, which arrived. 1 too late, fell victim to the Mahdi’s fanatical followers.

Big Double Attraction. Two important attractions are billed for the State Theatre on Monday and Tuesday next. A brilliant array of talent bedecks the new screen musical comedy, “The Girl Friend.” The big roles are filled by Ann Sothern and Jack ‘Haley, stars oi many Broadway successes and, within recent months, almost- as many Hollywood ones. Roger Pryor, another actor who has had equal popularity on both stage and screen, heads the supporting cast, with Thurston Hall, Victor Kilian and Inez Courtney contributing their share of gaiety to the picture. “The Rocks of Valpre,” adapted from Ethel M. Dell’s- popular novel of the same name, is the other attraction. Co-featuring John Garrick and Winifred Shotter, “Tho Rocks of Valpre” contains some very picturesque sequences, particularly those scones .which take place on the seashore, and again those showing the “drumming out” of the hero when convicted of treachery. The part of Chris gives Winifred Shotter her first really dramatic role. Miss Shotter has the difficult task of portraying a woman in three stages of life—as a girl—a mature woman—and as an old woman of eighty. Expert Dancing. A troupe of American chorus girls competing with the most famous European dancing ensembles before tho King and Queen of England as part of the Silver Jubilee celebration, won first prize for beauty, charm and ability. Leßoy Prinz, who staged the dances for “The Big Broadcast oi 1936,” coming on Monday to the Regent Theatre, trained the prize winning troupe and sent them to London. They appeared nightly at Dorchester House and in “Stop Press,” the English edition of “As Thousands Cheer.” The girls competed against the Cochran troupe, the outstanding English unit of its kind, chosen by C. B. Cochran, the “Ziegfeld” of Great Britain; the Ferry troupe, the Parisian Folies Bergere aggregation, in addition to many other famous dancing ensembles entered in the competition. “The Big Broadcast of 1936” features Jack Oakio, Burns and Allen, Lyda Roberti, Wendy Barrie and Henry Wadsworth, in addition to specialty numbers contributed by Bing Crosby, Amos ’n’ Andy, Ethel Merman, Ray Noble and bis Band, Bill Robinson, and others of radio, stage and screen fame. Animal Thriller.

Jungle hate strikes in the heart of a city in the startling “Murders in the Zoo,” which comes to the Kosy Theatre on Monday. It features Charlie Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, Kathleen Burke, Randolph Scott, , John Lodge and Gail Patrick. The slithering Green Mamba, voracious crocodiles and a bone-breaking python are the weapons oi terror born of the perverted mind of a jealous fiend in this aetionful picture oi hate in a city’s menagerie. Jealousy is the motive of the crimes committed in the zoo. Every man who dares look at the beautiful wife of Erie Gorman (Lionel Atwill) meets death—and since Atwill is himself a scientist,-a collector of wild animals, the producer has Revised ingenious methods of killing that pique tho imagination. Kathleen Burke,, a newcomer to the screen, whose sinuous portrayal oi the Panther Woman in the famous “Island of Lost Souls” won her cinematic fame over-night, portrays Evelyn Gorman, the wife.

“Pot Luck” is the title assigned to the new Walls-Lynn farce recently completed.

The Frank O’Brian Revue Company is appearing in Christchurch.

Joan Crawford and Clark Gable will star in “Love on the Run,” a newspaper story.

Now that the illness of Elizabeth Bergner has meant indefinite postponement of “Tiie Boy David,-” Ivor Novello lias stepped in and taken His Majesty’s Theatre, London, for “The Happy Hypocrite.” Ivor Novello is Lord George Hell, a roue of the Regency period, and Vivian Leigh the landlady.

Mine. Galli-Curci, the famous prima donna, was involved in a motor-car collision in Hollywood recently. She sustained bruises and a bluck eye.

Bernard Staw’s 80th birthday is on Sunday, July 26. The event is to be celebrated at Malvern, England, on Saturday, July 25, by a performance of bis greatest play, “St. Joan,” which is to open this year’s Malvern Festival. Other plays by Mr Sluuv in the festival programme are “Pygmalion” and “On the Rocks.”

“The Lady Consents” includes a scone in which two actors are shown drinking canned beer. The producers have now received letters oi protest from the Glassblowers’ Union and an association oi bottle manufacturers.

An operatic musicitl film called “I Dream of Love,” based on tho story of the singer Hortense Schneider and the composer Offenbach is being prepared. The score will include works by Offenbach, Meyerbeer, Wagner and Bizet. No cast lias yet been announced.

Uproarious Comedy. W. C. Fields, laugh promoter of the age, readies the top of his form as a comedian and pantomimist in his latest-laugh riot, “Man on the Flying Trapeze,” coming to the Rosy Theatre on Monday next . With his particular gift for comedy given full play. Fields carries the picture from one uproarious situation into another, pausing occasionally to allow the audience to catch its breath, and a moment later sending it oil' into gales of hilarity over the kind of buffoonery for which he has so definite a Hair. An amusing and quite plausible story carries Mr Fields from one uproarious incident to another. This time he is cast as a down-trodden, submissive husband persistently nagged by his wife and mother-in-law, consistently supported in his scrapes by his daughter, Mary Brian. Kathleen Howard, Grady Sutton, Vera Lewis, Oscar Apl'el, Lucien Littlefield support the star in- his l'un-making.

Bright Entertainment. " “Queen of Hearts,” the latest Cracie Fields production, will delight screen audiences the world over, for it presents a new, different Gracie Fields—funnier than ever — a Gracie Fields who is in the spectacularlystaged finale, with her white wig and brocaded frock, with huge swaying panniers, and bears a remarkable re-

semblance to the beautiful Jeanette MacDonald, as she appeared in “The Merry Widow” with Maurice Chevalier. “Queen of Hearts” will be the opening picture at the Mayfair Theatre on May 2. Here at last is the real Gracie Fields the world has been waiting to acclaim—the real of Hearts” radiating laughter and happiness in the surprise picture of the year. Interwoven throughout the story are four lilting song numbers — “My First Love Song,” “Why Did I Have To Meet You,” “I’m One of the Little Orphans of the Storm,” and “Queen of Hearts,” in which Gracie Fields scores effortlessly, revealing her glorious voice to the fullness of its beauty. The whole picture is fast, bright, breezy entertainment that moves with a swing from the opening titles to the end.

Joe li. Brown’s next film will be “Earthworm Tractor,” with June Travis and Carol Hughes in support.

Charlie Chan’s future engagements include “Charlie Chan at. the Races,” “Chan with the Navy,” and “Chan at Harvard.”

Burns and Allen are to be starred in “Three Cheers for Love.” Eleanor Whitney, Robert Cummings, Elizabeth Patterson, and Roscoe Earns are in the supporting cast.

11l view of the growing membership of the 'Wellington Repertory Theatre Society and the fact that the Concert Chamber was too- small to accommodate patrons during the recent five nights’ season of “The Admirable Crichton” the committee has decided to stage the next production, “Richard of Bordeaux,” for six performances. “Richard of Bordeaux,” by Gordon Daviot, is an historical play of rare beauty and interest.

“The Gordon of Allah” is to be filmed in colour, with Merle Oberon in the starring role. “Dark Victory” is to be postponed until after the filming of the Robert Hiehens story.

Margaret Lindsay has recovered from her nervous breakdown and will be teamed with Glenda Farrell in a comedy called “Lawyer Woman.”

That Jane Austin would have written plays if she had lived in times which allowed her sex more freedom is pure opinion, and can never be backed bv proof, says an English critic in reviewing the stage version of the famous novel, “Pride and Prejudice.” But it is not to be doubted, he adds, that if she had written plays, they would have been- good ones. Her characters and dialogue can hardly gain by being transferred to the stage, but they certainly do not lose. What has .to be sacrificed in quantity is made up for by an added quality which the speeches acquire by being spoken. Best of all, the texture of her writing, though' so delicate, is yet so strong that it needs no backing of coarser material to fit it for the theatre. The critic described the play, which opened at the St. James’ Theatre, London, recently, as adding “one more to the list—never too long—of pluys which the discriminating playgoer must not miss.”

NOTES AND JOTTINGS.^

Long Tack Sum, the magician is returning shortly for a tour of New Zealand.

Lila Lee is to appear in “Two for One.”

An Australian paper says that the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company will disband at the close of the New Zealand tour.

A Chicago author is claiming 1,000,000 dollars from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on the ground that “A Night at the Opera” is plagiarised from a story which ho himself wrote.

Lew Ayres and Florence Rice have been given the'leading roles in “Panic on the Air.”

Lester Matthews and Anne Grey have both been assigned to parts in “Too Many Parents.” They are husband and wife in private life.

Wilfred Lawson, British actor, has been put under contract to an American company and will appear for them in “Libel.”

James Gleason and Helen Broderick are to star in “Riddle of the Dangling Pearl.”

“The Great Ziegfeld” is now finish ed—and runs for four hours.

Darryl Zanuck plans to remake “What Price Glory?” with Clark Gable and Wallace Beery in the roles originally played by Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe.

David Selznick, who is preparing a story for Ronald Colman, has engaged a local G-man to guard the scrip in case any rival producer tries to “lift” the ideas in it.

An important record was set up recently at the New Theatre, London, where “Borneo and Juliet” reached its 162nd performance. It is the longest run of the play in the history of the theatre. Irving’s production at the Lyceum in 1881, with Ellen Terry as

Alan Mowbray, who plays a leading Juliet and Mrs Stilling as- the nurse, role in the Marlene Dietrich-Gary, had 161 performances. There is no reCooper film, “ Desire,” has appeared;cord of Irving’s takings, but net boxin (30 pictures in the last four years. I office figures at the New Theatre since “Jlomeo and Juliet” opened on October 17 are £37,150. John Gielgud’s production of “Hamlet” at the same theatre took £33,507 in 20 weeks. These are remarkable figures and a sufficient answer to the managers who maintain there is no money in Shakespeare. Well presented, he is still a box-office draw. How many straight plays, apart from musical comedies, have taken over £37,000 in 21 weeks?