STATE THEATRE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 168, 17 June 1936, Page 3

STATE THEATRE.

‘III GAUCHO.”

Combining- music with swift, exciting action without sacrificing the appeal of one or the other is successfully accomplished in the new romantic Argentine musical, “Hi Gaucho!”’ coming to-night to the State Theatre, with the adven-turer-singer, John Carroll, in the leading role. Both elements have been skilfully used. “Hi Gaucho !” introduces five new ipeiodies, the flow of dramatic action continuing while the actors sing being accomplished by rapidly changing camera angles. In John Carroll the producers beiievc they have the discovery of an unusually picasing personality and a fine baritone voice. “Seng of the Open Road” is sung by Carroll anti his band of gauclios as they return from a cattle drive, its robust spirit emphasised by the thud of hoofs and the slap of leather . quirts, while the pampas riders punctuate their lusty choruses with daring feats of horsemanship. “Bandit Song” is hurled from the throats of equally hard-riding plunderers, headed by Rod Laßocque, while they good-humouredly pursue their deeds of villainy. Folk songs give vividness and authenticity to a fiesta similar to those which made Argentina villages places of rich living in the early nineteenth century. As was the gaucho’s way of ardent love-making, Carroll woos the senorita with song. A serenade and “1/.U.0 White Rose” are two such numbers. “FANG AND CLAW.”

In “Fr.ng and Claw,” Bring-’Em-Back-Alive Frank Buck's newest film, which will also bo shown at the State Theatre,

commencing to-night, the larger animals, such as tigers, crocodiles and a baby armour-plated rhinoceros, are the principal actors in the numerous thrill ng episodes. The film nevertheless contains intimate camera studies of the smaller denizens of the jungle, When Frank Buck sets out to catch monkeys lie bags them in wholesale lots. In one highly interesting and amusing episode in the movie, what appears to he literally thousands of them swarm down out of the trees and ravenously attack the tempting food that has been left as bait. The great net soon closes in upon their dining room, however, and some hundred whiskered wanderoo monkeys remain as compulsory guests. “Fang and Claw,” produced by the Van Beurem Corporation, is indeed another treat for lovers of jungle films, and it will no doubt increase the interest in this type of photoplay because its thrills are new and ingenious.