ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 228, 25 August 1938, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE. “LANCER SPY.” [ “I find it so pleasant to be unpleasant,” George Sanders declared with a chuckle, i “I am somewhat selfish in wanting to remain a villain. I think,, that such roles require ability, more finesse, and truer to , life in their characterisations than are ’ the romantic hero carts that Hollywood hands out. But if I’m to be a romantio ’ chap, I’m going to bo a swashbuckling one with some virility and depth of omotion to my portrayals. I’ll not be just another handsome face on the screen.” Darryl F. Zanuck knev/- Sanders’ idea when he called him in to give him the title role in “Lancer Spy,” coining to the Meteor Theatre to-morrow, in which he is co-featured with Dolores Del Rio and Peter Lorre. In fact, it wasn’t one role at all, but four distinctly separate roles. Sanders starts the film as a .British naval lieutenant, becomes an imperious German high army officer, then a Prussian general sixty years old, and finally a middleaged Swiss railroad porter. “I have to create four entirely different characters,” Sanders points out. “I have to talk with a British accent, which conies naturally enough since I am English, and then with a German accent. Of course,, I am supposed to look and act differently for each of the four parts.” The assignment was the most difficult that any producer has handed an aspiring actor in many months. A supporting cast of stellar names appears in “Lancer Spy,” including Virginia Field, Sig Rumann, Joseph Schildkraut, Maurice Moscovieh, Lionel Atwill and Luther Adler. The story of “Lancer Spy,” adapted by Philip Dunne from a novel by Marthe McKenna, places Sanders in the extraordinary position of a British agent, sitting with the German high command in the uniform of a Prussian lancer, who, if he lives, can strike a deadlier blow than a million marching men. REGENT THEATRE. “TEST PILOT.” “Test Pilot,” the most authentic aviation picture yet produced, with four stars in Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy and Lionel Barrymore, concludes a most successful week at the Regent Theatre tomorrow night at 8 o’clock. •It includes some of the most spectacular and daring flying scenes ever seen in an aviation picture and is an entertainment no one can afford to miss. Plans are on view at Collinson and Cunninghamo’s, ’phone 7178. “LET GEORGE DO IT.” His name is Scottish, his parents are Irish, and ho was born in Aberdeen, New South Wales. What is he? No! It’s nota conundrum —just an effort to solve the nationality of George Wallace, star of Cincsound’s comedy, “Let George Do It. ' George left Aberdeen at an early, age to embark on a theatrical career with his parents. Casting was in progress for a pantomime, “Robinson Crusoe.” A pirate was needed. Papa Wallace had an inspiration. “Let George Do It,” ho suggested. So chunky little George;' aged five, started on his career. In the wings each night Papa Wallace stood, and pity help little George if his performance was not up to the family standard. After many years of vaudeville work, the now fatuous George Wallace was introduced to film work by tho late F. W. Thring. Several “shorts” and feature productions, including “His Royal Highness” and “A Ticket in Tatts,” revealed his amazing screen personality. ■ When Cinesound Productions decided to make a comedy, Producer-Director Ken G. Hall remembered George Wallace’s Chaplin-like gift of mimieing, and his ability to combine pathos and laughter. “Let George Do It,” he suggested. So George Wallace created “Joe Blake,” a subtle, yet uproariously funny characterisation, in the new,. Cinesound production. When Wallace was required to accidentally pull a string letting rabbits, ducks and fowls escape from a conjuror’s box, he added several extra rehearsals to the scene t,o watch tho perspiring property men and electrians. chasing the animals and birds all over the sound stage. STATE THEATRE. “BRINGING UP BABY.” A new challenge to the amusementseeking public’s risibilities is now on the motion picture screen in “Bringing Up | Baby,” a fast-paccd modern comedy romance screening to-morrow at the State i Theatre with Katharine Hepburn, no less, playing mad pranks as an iieiress animated with mischief, and Cary Grant in an equally bizarre but contrasting bole as tlie victim of hor torments. Miss Hepburn portrays ap impetuous society girl who always gets what she wants, and wanting Cary Grant, a staid and dignified professor of zoology, she goes after him and does her best to break up liis impending marriage to his secretary. Grant, however, has only one interest in lifo — the completion of tho skeleton of a giant dinosaur at his museum. Miss Hepburn, with tho aid of a tame leopard, entices him from his work, and involves him in a flood of complications in which their exploits, the leopard’s escape and pursuit over the Connecticut countryside, a mil-lion-dollab bequest, a big game hunter, Miss Hepburn’s domineering aunt, a boastful Irishman and a suspicious psychiatrist are all tangled together in one riotous piece of screen fare. Grant’s matrimonial plans and his peace of mind are lost in the shuffle, while Miss Hepburn, with the best of intentions, manages to get into trouble with her dynamic prosecution of her romantio campaign. Tho results are a* disastrous as they are entertaining. Miss Hepburn, who heretofore has scored chiefly in strong dramatic roles, as in the recent “Stage Door." is said to bo sensational as a madcap comedienne in the new offering. She is ably matched by Grant, whose work in “Topper” and “The Awful Truth” has sent him soaring to top rank among screen funsters. A brilliant featured cast is in the film, with May Robson as Miss Hepburn’s wealthy and bossy aunt, Charlie Ruggles as a chatty big-game hunter, Barry Fitzgerald as a boastful Irish gardener, Walter Catlett as a comic gaoler, Fritz Feld as a doctor, George Irving as an attorney, and Leona Roberts and Virginia Walker in prominent supporting roles. In addition, two of Hollywood’s most prominent four-footed actors have important parts—“ Nissa,” an eight-year-old leopard, and “Asta,” the famous wire-haired terrier of “The Thin Man.” In keeping with its novelties of plot, the picture offers notable settings. A huge museum room with a full-sized brontosaurus skeleton 80 feet long (an exact copy of the famous specimen at the Peabody Museum at Yale University), a luxurious Connectticut estate, a country club, a noted New York hotel and a small town gaol comprise tlie principal background against which the story runs its dizzy course. “DQNALD’S NEPHEWS.” The public have three new heroes. They are Huey, Dewey and Louie, tho three bad little ducklings who come to visit their Uncle , Donald in Walt Disney’s “Donald’s Nephews,” RKO Radio release in teohnicolour. Although he attempts to handle them with advice from a book on child training; the “boys” are too quick for Uncle Donald as they practically tear the roof off his house and leave him gasping for air.