ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 36, 11 January 1939, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

iMETEOR THEATRE. “BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938.” Buddy Ebsen believes that if lie hadn’t been born tired he’d never have become a dancer on the stage and screen. The lanky, shuffling comedian actually admits that _he developed his particular style of dancing because it was “easy.” “As a youngster in Orlando, Florida,” says the actor, concurrently appearing in “Broadway Melody of 1938” at the Meteor Theatre with Robert Taylor and Eleanor Powell co-starring, “I was forced to go to dancing school for two good reasons; my father was the instructor, and my father owned the school. Protest as T would, father insisted that I go to school. So, knowing that I was too young to go out into the world and earn half enough food to lill my sprouting body, I continued from the heel-and-toe to time-step. But after one tiring afternoon, one of those hot Florida afternoons, I decided that there must be some way out of fast steps that we were learning. Then the idea struck me. The next afternoon, in class, I dragged my feet instead of stepping high as my father requested. Finally, he stoj)ped the class and proceeded to give me a first-rate tongue-lashing. I was forced to give an explanation. I told my father that I was merely creating my own individual style of dancing. I thought this answer would make father so mad that he would let me give up dancing so I could pass my afternoon in the surf. Instead, father took me seriously and that’s how the Buddy Ebsen technique was perfected.”

STATE THEATRE. “PAINTED DESERT.” Dealing with a colourful struggle to get possession of an immensely rich tungsten mine in Arizona, “Painted Desert” brings George O’Brien to the screen in another action-packed outdoor picture. Gorgeous settings in the AJajave desert of California and tile actual Painted. Desert near Cameron, Arizona, comprise the more colouriul backgrounds of the film. The dynamiting of tiie mountainside and scenes of the stampede of an ore train are said to be among the most thrilling sequences ever filmed. O’Brien plays the role of a well-to-do cattleman, on whose range a wandering prospector and his pretty granddaughter have discovered a promising vein of tungsten. Planning to drive the trespassers away, O’Brien is himself driven off at gun-point by the girl. But when the old prospector, who has gone to town for more money to develop the property is killed in an ensuing card game, O’Brien secures the title to the mine from the promoter, and then learns that it is immensely valuable. But in starting to develop it he comes in conflict with the girl, who is now aware that her grandfather signed away his rights before his death. C ll willing to tell her that he is the real owner, O’Brien enters into partnership with her. and borrows enough money to put up a stamp mill and enlarge the mine. The promoter, however, anxious to regain control, commences a series of underhanded moves designed to force his opponent into linaricial troubles and loss of the property. With a stirring cattle stampede, a running battle between the ore wagon train and marauders who are trying to force the wagon over the cliff, and a desperate effort to blow up the mine, the picture achieves unusual heights of drama. Romance. treachery, laughter and a wealth of ihrills are woven into the fabiie of the story. ' “BATTLE OF BROADWAY.” In “Battle of Broadway,” based on the American Legion’s ‘'unconventional convention” in New York, the merry military onslaught is provided by the Army, Navy and Marines. Victor (fcjcz you) McLaglen and Brian (One punch) Donlevy arrive on the Gay Wiiite Way in the Legion vanguard—to see what makes the cosy little village on the Hudson River so popular. Not since Mademoiselle lrom Armentieres was a mere slip of a girl, not since “What Brice Glory” and “The Cockeyed World” has there been such heck-raising on. the screen. McLaglen and Donlevy, both lion-cst-off-screen veterans, lend more truth- to this film than play-acting could ever devise. These battle-scarred veterans know all the manoeuvres —and when they lay siege to beautiful Louise Hovick, “Battle of Broadway,” like the Battle of the Marne, becomes nothing more than a whole collection of fights conveniently filed under one heading. The cast of the film includes Raymond Walburn, Lynn Bari, Jane Darwcll and Robert Kcllard. The lusty screen play by Lou Brcslow and John Patrick combines business with pleasure for Vic and Brian. Walburn assigns them tiie task of breaking bis son's romance with a chorus girl while they are in New York. Louise pretends to be Bob Kellard’s fiancee, to save the real affair, and the boys have a grand time trying to steal her away from Bob, and each other.

MAYFAIR THEATRE. “ROMANCE OF TIIE LIMBERLOST.” An all star east is one of the features 1 of the attraction in Monogram’s “Romance of the Limbcrlost, ” now showing at the Mayfair Theatre. Its star, Jean Parker, is well known for her portrayal of youth in emotional crises. “The Barrier” and “Sequoia” are two of the most memorable of her recent pictures. In “Romance of the Limbcrlost” Miss Parker gives a superb portrait of a young girl lace to face with first love. Edward Pawley, often named as one of Hollywooil’s finest character actors, contributes a powerful characterisation o,f a cruel swamp bully that should win an award as a portrait of tiie a rib screen heavy of all time. The character of Nora, Laurie’s aunt, a woman filled with bitterness and hatred from a lifetime of frustration is strongly drawn by Marjory Main, the Broadway star who won tiie plaudits of the crowds and criticis for her portrayal of the gangster mother in “Dead End.” Then there is Erie Linden who plays the idealistic young lawyer forced to choose between ease and honour; Hollis Jewell, a youngster playing his first screen role of Chris, the hound boy who revolted against a cruel master when the one person he loved was to be sacrificed to him, and Betty Blythe creating once more her original role of Mrs Parker, “tiie Bird Woman.” “Romance of the Limbcrlost” was suggested by Gene Stratton Porter’s “Girl of the Limbcrlost.” j “MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME.”

Evelyn Venables and Grant Richards who play leading roles in Monogram’s new feature, “My Old Kentucky Dome,” the second feature, are liable to find themselves sharing honours with Paul White, a 13-year-old negro lad who only recently entered films. When Monogram was looking for a talented coloured boy to play in Jackie Cooper's “Boy of the Streets,” Paul applied, and won the role of the little bootblack over many contestants. “My Did Kentucky Home” is the story of an aristocratic bluegrass family and Miss Venables plays the part of the daughter who is about to be united in marriage to the scion of another wealthy clan, when scanda.! ruins the romance. Much of the film was shot in Kentucky and additional authentic Southern atmosphere is conveyed by the Hall Johnson Choir singing Stephen Foster’s immortal melodies. Prominent in the east also are Clara Blandiek, Bcrnadcnc Hayes and J. Farrell MacDonald.