ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 97, 23 March 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

KOSY THEATRE. “NO LIMIT.” George Forniby, famous English come•iliiiii. in ‘‘No Limit," is the attraction at tin; Ivos.y Theatre to-night. 110 lias a great role, that of George Slmulcworlli, a mere chimney sweep's help whose unromantic position was enhanced somewhat h.v his great ambition to win the famous Isle of Man Tourist Trophy Race. But he only had an ancient machine with various additional gadgets constructed by himself. At last, he rakes his fortune in hand, borrows sufficient money and sets oft to ride in the big race. On the journey he meets with Florrie Dibney, who at once recognises George’s helpless nature and determines to mother him. Luring a trial on the track some days before the big contest, George, by some remarkable chance, manages to break a record. The officials and onlookers are amazed and George is looked upon as something in llie nature of a certainty. But George is positively frightened. During the trial the machine had got out ol control and he was quite resolved that lie would not ride in the big race. This desire is strengthened immeasurably by the £SO bribe which the manager of a rival team offers him to stay out of the race. To satisfy this unscrupulous gent, he even drives his motor-cycle over the cliff. But it is not as easy as all that. In comes Florrie that very night to tell him that he has been appointed the official rider of the Rainbow Cycle Co., and she provides him with a new cycle. Boor old George is thus put in a terrible quandary. Either ho has to offend Florrie or double-cross liis rivals. “THE SCRAPPER.” The second feature is the screen's most popular hoy, Mickey Rooney, in “The Scrapper.” lie is seen as a young impoverished schoolboy who is considered, with his shell-shocked lather, the nuisance of the town. . METEOR THEATRE. “MARX BROS. AT THE CIRCUS.” With the biggest show on earth as their playground, the Marx Bros, return to the screen in “Marx Bros, at the Circus,” now showing at the Meteor Theatre. The biggest show is a three-ringed streamlined circus, with menageries and midway, which was built especially as the setting for the latest crackpot antics; of the Mad Marxians —Groucho, -ilarpo and Chico. Climaxing the new Marx comedy is the longest aerial acrobatic act in tiro world. Although ordinarily the act would run for fifteen minutes, it continued for three weeks, six flays weekly and eight, hours daily, before it' reached its conclusion. It is a most unorthodox act. Instead of having professional acrialists, the Marxes and their supporting cast are the daring young men on the flying trapeze. High iti the shrouds of the Big Top, an angered gorilla chases the villainous circus manager. Tile circus manager chases Margaret Dumont, and Groucho, Ilarpo and Chico chase Hie gorilla. “Marx Bros, at the Circus” is an hilarious musical comedy that takes the audience behind the I scenes of a streamlined circus while the ] Marxes run rampant. Ilarpo and Chico tire circus employees and friends of Kenny Baker, part-owner, about to loco his share of the big show through the con- j nivanco of Nat Pendleton, the Strong. Man; Eve Arden, the Upside-Down Girl, I and Jerry Marenghi, the Midget. They] call in Groucho, their lawyer friend, who] finally saves the circus by staging it as a j society function on the front lawn of Mr Dukosbufy, played liv Margaret Dumont. STATE THEATRE. “OVER THE MOON.” 'This fast-moving comedy-romance of re-fro-hing originality, replete with hilarious humour. minimal situations and lavish splendour in glorious technicolour, was specially written for Merle Obcron by Robert Sherwood, author of “The Ghost Goes Wrist,” and one of America's most successful dramatists. The picture screens ;tt the .State Theatre on Saturday. It. is Miss Oberon's first picture since her highly successful appearance iti “Wuthering Heights.” “Over the Moon” is praised by Ihe entire London press and is said to lie one of Alexander Korda's greatest triumphs beCauric of its general polish, originality and highly entertaining story in gorgeous techliieolotir settings. Besides Merle Obcron. who play.; the leading role, there is in the cast Rex Harrison, who was the reporter in “Storm in a Teacup,” Ursula Jeans. Robert Douglas and many others. If the essence of romance the weaving of daydreams into life, then Alexander Korda’s “Over the Moon” is the cream of romantic stories. All the “stud that ‘romantic’ drcanas are made on” have found their way into the composition of this gay story, which discovers Merle Oberon as an impoverished orphan in Yorkshire, and dances, her as a millionaire heiress across Europe. The fanciful ingredients are loss important: than Ihe pace, hilarity and comic sequences of Miss Oberon’s bewildered transformation into Kurope’ri richest playgirl. Only Meric is not really bewildered. She’s stubborn, she’s pig-headed, she scoops shovelfuls out of her millions and scatters them over her cavalcade of hangers-on. but all the time she keeps her head, and in spite of complications, her heart. That’s not so hard its it may seem, because she had already lost it to Rex Harrison, who took a chance when she was poor, clinched it a little uneasily when she became rich, and threw it away when she became intolerable. MAYFAIR THEATRE. “HELL’S KITCHEN.” More sympathetically presented than they ever have been before, the “Dead End” Kids are the central characters of “Hell’s Kitchen,” the Warner Bros.’ picture which opens at the Mayfair Theatre on Saturday. The story is also unusual in that it includes as a toil for the boisterous youngsters an adult character who is in elfect just such a kid grown much older, much wiser and much tougher. This character is played by Stanley Fields. 'I lie other leading roles are taken by Margaret Lindsay, Ronald Reagan, Grant Mitchell and Frankie Burke, the erstwhile Cagney impersonator being in Ibis instance added tu the “Dead End" gang. In it series of absorbing sequences which range from the luridly melodramatic to the hilariously humorous, the picture tolls of Ihe regeneration of the tliuggish racketeer played by Fields tin a result of the sympathy aroused in him by the tough but essentially good inmates of it shelter home for boys. The boys, the leaders among who are depicted by the “Dead finders,” are just such kids as Fields realises lie was himself as u youngster. They are lialfstarved and brutally treated and eventually they revolt against their intolerable lot. Fields’ original interest in the shelter home has been that of a racketeer who has just conic across something from which he can make some money hut it hasn’t taken long for the hoys to arouse in him a rough but genuine paternal interest. And be proves this effectively when lie voluntarily surrenders himself for a prison term just so that he can help in defending amt exonerating the boys from the consequences of their revolt. “FLIGHT TO FAME.” Char’e- Farrell, active abroad for the past two years, returns to the Mayfair Theatre screen oti Saturday in “Flight to Fame ” a breath-taking film whose thrilling aerial sequences and timely narrative make for plenty of audience excitement and attention. Jacqueline Wells is cast opposite the virile young star. The actor is seen as a daredevil aviation officer, assigned to the War Department while awaiting the testing of a new type of pursuit ’plane ho has developed, lie meets Miss Wells, the pretty daughter of an eccentric inventor, a former World War flyer who lias invented a “death ray” gun. The latter, by means of an electronic beam, literally blasts ’planes out of fho sky and dreadnoughts out of water. ’These opening scenes launch an action-packed chain of events. Murder, jealousy, revenge, mystery, all throng the thrilling narrative, together with romance shared by Farrell and Miss Wells and some of the most brilliant and spectacular aviation scenes ever to reach the screen. Also screening is chapter 1 of the weird and mysterious serial, “The Phantom Creeps,” starring Bela Lugosi.