ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 225, 22 August 1938, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE. “SONG OF FREEDOM.” Employed in the London docks, Zinga, a huge, powerful negro, sings and dreams as ho works. And often, fingering an old talisman he wears about his nock he asks himself where did he come from? What tribe or race can he claim as his own ? One evening ho is singing in a public bouse and Donizetti, a famous impressario, hearing the magnificent range and quality of that untrained voice, knows be has made a “find.” Zinga early accepts Donizetti’s offer to train him. The result is world-fame. 'Rome, Berlin, Vienna and London. A coloured opera is staged at Covent Garden; its story is the drama of “Emperor "Jones,” with Zinga in the title role. Afterwards lie sings part of a queer song as an encore. Among tho audience sits a famous anthropologist who a.t the reception afterwards seeks Zinga out. On learning that he has never seen Africa the man tells him that his encore song retains the exact melody of a little known negro folk song. In the dressing room Zinga’s visitor notices something more —the talisman that is the symbol oE the kingship of these people living on an island off. West Africa. Determined 10 return to his ancestors’ home, Zinga sets off with his wife, lie finds his people depressed, poor, struggling—hopeful that a strange King will bring them riches and —better still—rain, the lack of which has made them poor. If this King is a real King of their tribe, they say be can evoke the rain. It is hopeless for Zinga to explain to bis uneducated people the reason for the lack of water, and by slow- degrees be sadly recognises his world apart from them.

KOSY .THEATRE. “BLAZING SIXES.” “Blazing Sixes” —and that means six-, guns pouring out their deadly . contents as horsemen gallop and stage coaches rumble along—is the thrilling Western picture now showing at the Kosy Theatre. It is another triumph for that 6-foot, red-headed singing cowboy, Dick Foran, the Warner Bros, riding, roping, shooting star, who since entering pictures u couple of years ago has made almost a dozen hit shows of the swift-moving outdoor type. It’s the West of 1890 we see this time, with Dick riding into 'a little town ostensibly looking for a. job. In reality he’s a Government operative (they didn’t call them G-men in those days) trying to solve the mystery why coach after coach carrying gold coins from Denver mint, is being held up and robbed. 'Dick gets liis job from Jim Hess, local gambler and saloonkeeper, and before longs finds out that Hess is the ring-leader of the road agents who’ve' been holding up the stages, stealing the gold coins and melting them down into bars. But Dick does nothing so simple as to arrest Hess on the spot. lie wants tho the whole gang. So —learning what the next hold-up is to be, and where —ho goes out to the spot., masked, and holds up the hold-up men, taking away their loot. Back at the Diamond M ranch, where lie’s been working for Hess, and which is the hideaway of the loot, Dick confides to the leader that he was the mysterious bandit —and is declared in as a member of the gang. But Hess double-crosses Dick, and tells the shorifl Dick is responsible for all the hold-ups. Dick has a real pal, Poowec, who convinces the sheriff Ibis isn’t so. So a posse (inY-ludin'g Dick) goes after Hess and his minions, who are fleeing-with the gold bars. “RECKLESS LIVING.”

“Reckless Living” is tho second a’.trae tion now showing at the Kosy Theatre.