ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 30 September 1936, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

REGENT THEATRE. “RIFFRAFF.” Jean Harlow has never displayed her versatility as an actress to better advantage than in “Riffi-ait,” which opens today at the Regent Theatre. She toliows her smashing hit in “China Seas” with another sparkling role, against a background ot the sea, but in a vital, romantic story, which gives her the iincst opportunity of her career. Teamed with her for the tirst time is one of Hollywood’s finest actors, bpencer Tracy, and the two miss no opening to get tne most out of the powerlul and sweeping story which mixes tiic most hi.arious comedy with the most touching pathos. Convinced that the trend ol public preiercnce is lor red-blooded stories with viruc power and sweep, Metro-Coldwyn-Mayer has scored in starring its two strongest personalities. The story of “Riffraff” invades a brand new locate, the commercial fishing fleet Unit plies the waters of the Pacific off Southern Calnornia. Much of the story takes piace in the fishing village adjacent to the great California metropolis—a community affiliated with the city, vet entirely separated as though in a different world. There the fishermen and their families live their lives, and work out their destinies without contact with outside influences. “Riffraff”' tells of the love of .Miss Harlow and Tracy, a love that transcends man made laws, yet is masked in a veil of rough badinage that cannot entirely conceal its depth and sincerity. It presents Miss Har.ow in one of her mast unusual roies, an agel of the waterfront who marries a braggart and a bully and spends the rest of Iter life trying to reform him. Tracy is shown as a swaggering skipper of a tuna clipper, a two-hsted strong man who rules the licet with an iron hand. Into the story are woven economic problems as vital as tomorrow, and thrills such as the screen has seldom seen.

STATE THEATRE. “POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL.” It is a well-known fact that most Hollywood stars would rather do most anything than give their autographs to the collection “hounds.” But, as always, there must he an exception to the rule and in the ease of the movie colony there ts otto person to whom everyone is willing, in fact eager, to present their signatures Shirley Temple. The tiny little star, whose brilliant new Fox Hit, “The Poor Little Rich Girl,” is current at the State Theatre, has one of the largest autograph collections not only in the movie city but in the entire world. She started the collection back in 1933 when she was appearing in “Stand Up anti Cheer,” her first major film alter leaving the “Baby Burlesques” of the short comedy field. Some signatures, such as that of Jay Gottrney, cannot be deciphered,- but Shirley knows them all by heart. Gourney, who wrote tiic lvrics for “Stand Up and Cheer,” indicted in iter book: “Everybody's asking mo who’s that bunch of personality. And my answer is always Miss Shirley T employ’ Gary Cooper plavcd Shirley’s father in “Now and Forever.” “To ‘Wiggle Britches’ from your no-good screen daddy, Jerry Day, alias Gary Cooper,” he wrote. Carole Lombard added her signature. Bill Robinson, the world’s greatest tap dancer, is one of Shirley's favourites. “I will do a few taps any time, any place, anyvyhere, for the cleverest and sweetest little girl in the world,” he wrote. On one page a faroff admirer wrote: “Viva Kaatnaukai. Chare a Inoc. Teechupu, Tahiti. Aloha oe o to. Chore Shirley.” A strange mixture of the Polynesian and the official French language of that South Sea paradise. Lionel Barrymore, who played in “The Little Colonel” with Shirley, wrote: “With affection and great admiration.”

The South African Dairy Produce Control Board has been instructed to work out. a scheme for utilising socalled surplus butter by selling it at 4d a pound to charities for feeding the poor.