ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 67, 16 February 1939, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE. “IT’S IN THE AIR.” George Formby joins the R.A.F. and happiness is here mgain—in fact, “It’s In . The Air.” Typically topical, the latest Formby film has as Wits background the Air Force where George finds himself “accidentally” in uniform, subjected to a bewildering discipline, and, as usual, making a hopeless mess of “everything.” George done sky-blue with the mistaken idea of saving his sister’s airman sweetheart from exposure, and almost succeeds in wrecking the camp witii his sublime clumsy ignorance, nearly giving the ser-geant-major apoplexy, and becoming the butt for every practical joker in the service. One wildly funny scene shows him quartered in flic sergeant-major’s own rooms, thinking they are part of the visitors’ quarters, and there arc many others in like vein. The fun reaches extravagant heights when “our hero” docs duty as a dispatch rider, careering madly over the countryside on a motor-cycle combination with the local 0.0. as his terrified passenger. Of course, from the minute lie “joins up,” audiences will bo waiting for the inevitable sequence when Formby takes to the air. And when it does arrive, everybody gets a generous money’s worth of riotous fun, because he finds himself alone in the heavens aboard a 'plane about which lie knows nothing, performing weird figures in the sky, looping the loop, swooping earthwards in hair-raising dives, loosing live bombs and a hail of machine-gun bullets —in short doing everything but break his neck.

REGENT THEATRE. “STABLEMATES.” A new screen team is introduced in “Stablcmates,” in which Wallace Beery and Mickey Rooney arc co-starrcd. Beery is seen in the role of a once brilliant veterinarian who changed to a race trackhobo because ho was framed into a murder charge. Rooney, fresh from his triumph in “Boys Town,’’ wins more admirers, if possible, in his characterisation of the stable boy and jockey who befriends Beery in order to get the latter to operate on his injured horse. The two join forces and tour the country with the racehorse, which Rooney has been given in lieu of his salary. When the horse is in perfect condition they start for Hollywood Bark to participate in the big race. One day Rooney listens to a radio broadcast and learns that his travelling companion is an escaped convict. Having learned to love Beery like a father, he tries to persuade him not to come to the track without letting him know the reason. Capture is sure if he does. But Beery goes along. There they meet the man who was responsible for Beery’s framed charge. He is the former owner of Rooney’s horse and takes it from the boy because be can’t show ownership papers. Then things start to happen, with the action of the big race matching the tempo of the climax.