ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 302, 19 November 1938, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE. “MAD ABOUT MUSIC.’’ For tho third time in her short career, 15-year-old Deanna Durbin triumphs. Less than two years ago, Deanna was an unknown Los Angeles schoolgirl, not evon dreaming of a screen career. Her first picture established her as a child of promsie; her second confirmed that promise. Her third, “Mad About Music,” now sliowing an the Meteor Theatre, proves beyond a doubt that little Miss Durbin is a genuine star, firmly estabished in her niche of screen fame. “Mad About Music” is a delightful picture. It presents Deanna in a different characterisation from those of her previous pictures, and in a mood and tempo entirely different. “Mad About Music” is a com-edy-drama. Only a few tears —and those in the most effective manner —intrude into the story of the little girl with the make-believe father and whose dream? come true. Deanna sings as boautifudy as ever. With the exception of Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” her selections are lighter, more in the popular ballad vein, than those of “100 Men and a Girl.” Sho rendders three songs, “I Love to Whistle,’ “Serenade to the Stars” and “Chapel Bells” by Jimmie McHugh and Harold Adamson, in addition to Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” The cast including Herbert Marshall Gail Patrick, Arthur Treacher, William Frawley, Marcia Mae Jones, Helen Parrish, Jackie Moran, Christian Rub, Charles Peck, Nana Bryant. Elizabeth Risdon, Joan Tree, Charles Judells, Franklin Pangborn, Bert Roach and Sid Grauman, turn in fine performances. Iho story is by Frederick Kohmer and Marcolla Burke, with screen play by Bruce Manning and Felix Jackson.

STATE THEATRE, “ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND." Periodically Hollywood produces a picture that stands out as a beacon along the highroad of motion picture progress — and such a picture is Darryl F. Zanuck’s production of Irving Berlin’s groat saga of three decades in the march of America The Berlin score is, of oourse, without previous or subsequent parallel. It took the Shakespeare of syncopation 27 years to write it, and every one of the 28 songs, used wholly or partially in the picture, topped the hit parade of its era. They are milestones along rhythm’s conquest of mankind from the Barbary Coast to Carnegie liall, The film makes them integral story material by casting the principal characters as members of a fictitious Alex ander’s Ragtime Band —and letting them do just about what the members of a real band would have done. In the bewildering brilliance of “Alexander” one remembers that Tyrone Power starts with a small band in a honky-tonk. Don Ameche writes the tunes which Alice Faye sings. Love smolders, flares, cools, blows up and is rekindled over the years for Tyrono and Alice. History moves before the eyes with the reminiscent melodies of Berlin as a gentle guide through the plot. Such a story framework —the career of a young musician and the girl who sang the nation’s love songs—two hor-heads quarrelling and parting, forgiving and finding loee again through the music that was their life —is novel and scintillating. Jean Ilersholt and Helen Westley take efficient care of the roles as the music teacher and young Power’s aunt.