ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 70, 20 February 1939, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

KOSY THEATRE. “MR WONG, DETECTIVE.” Boris Karloff as “Mr Wong-. Detective.” Thrills! Thrills! And more thrills in the first series of baffling detective mystery dramas. The most seasoned follower of the adventures of screen sleuths will _ get a real thrill out of “.Mr Wong, Detective,” which is now showing at the Kosy Theatre, for not only is it clever mystery drama, full of action and suspense, hut it serves to introduce a new screen detective in the person of that ox-horror man and master of eerie characterisation. Boris Karloff. For this first in a series of mystery films, based on the popular Hugh W ilcy stories, Karloff dons the celestial raiment of James I.cc Wong, a hero well known to magazine lans. Wong, educated at Oxford and scientifically schooled in crime detecting, begins his career at Monogram by unravelling a triple murder that baffles Sat; Francisco’s police. Three partners of the Dayton Chemical Company arc killed,' each alone in a room which has no access. Wong is called in to help to solve the crime and work with his friend. Captain Street, of the San Francisco Police Department,. With the help of tost tubes and a physics hook, Wong discovers the murderer’s methods —the use of poison gas in a glass receptacle which is shattered by vibration —but it is not until after the third murder that he learns how the glass was made to break. With this dangerous secret in his hands, Wong sets off for police headquarters, but walks into the ki'ler s trap, where his two friends have preceded him. “SHE ASKED FOR IT.” The associate feature, “She Asked for It.” is a new mystery comedy with William Gargan and a beautiful new star, Orion Heyward, in the leading roles. METEOR THEATRE. “MANHATTAN' MELODRAMA.” New York in the early years of the century when “Diamond Jim” Brady was a familiar iiguro and. Lillian Russell was the toast of the town, lives briefly on the screen in “Manhattan Melodrama,” now showing at the Meteor Theatre, which co-stars Clark Gable, William Rowell and Myrna Loy. As a sort of prologue to the principal action, which is laid in 1934. the picture recreates one of the most horrible disasters hi the iiig city’s history—the lire ami beaching ol the excursion steamer General Slocum, a tiagedy that cost more than 1000 lives. Metro-Goldwyn-Maycr studio technicians reenacted the entire disaster in and around the studio’s stages, and made it one of the most spectacular scenes ever filmed. Recreated also is the lamous Winter roof, long since torn down where, m 1906, Harry Thaw killed Stamford White. A brief tsequence of the. picture takes place there. The Dempscy-Firpo light in 1923 is still another of the big 1 moments oi metropolitan historv that comes to life in “Manhattan Melodrama,” forming a background for one of the dramatic scenes.