ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 125, 26 April 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

STATE THEATRE. “WINDOW IN LONDON.” Anna Ncaglc rose from the chorus and basks in the sunshine of fame; anti now another ■ little girl is well on the way to that successful zenith—her name is Sally Gray. Captain Richard Norton acclaims her as' the biggest star discovery since Anna Neagle aiul is quite confident that her talent will bring her to the fore. In “Window in London,” screening at the Slate Theatre to-day, Sally Gray plays her first dramatic part. It doesn’t worry her a bit that her role is not a sympathetic one. She plays the wife of an out-of-work music hall illusionist who is much older than her and insanely jealous. The music hall 'illusionist is played by Paul Lukas. Sally says, “we live in cheap rooms in a dingy, squalid J.nnddn street. I’m afraid I treat my film, husband rather shamelessly. We are always lighting. In the end I drive him too far and he kills me.” Producer Norton claims that this little girl blonde has a great future in pictures. Prom a pittance in the chorus she is now earning £4OO a week. In her first film she played opposite Billy Milton and then was partnered by Stanley Lupino, Geoffrey Tooric in “Sword of Honour,” and George Sanders in “The Saint in London. “Sally Gray is not a striking beauty# but her sweet fascination is naturalness. She is just herself, unaffected, sincere and charming. MAYFAIR THEATRE. “THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG.” One of the most amazing aspects of | civilisation is its constant striving for progress. Every day records are broken, old achievements are improved upon and new heights are reached. Typical of the never-ending search for better tilings lias been the progress of Hollywood. For, aside from the technical improvement in the making of pictures, llollywoodians are always finding new and better stcry-tell-ing techniques and stronger and subtler ways of achieving effects. One of the outstanding yardsticks of the film colony’s growth has been the quality and nature of the horror-films, tho newest of which, Columbia's “Tho Man They Could Not Hang,” now stars Boris Karloff at the Mayfair Theatre. AVay back, in the days of “The Perils of Pauline,” horror was evoked from the audience by the rather simple expedient of giving the villain a hook for a hand. Hie first real purveyor of horror was of course Lon Chancy, euphemistically known as “the man with a thousand faces.” Chaney used to shock his audience into attention by the compelling physical appearance of bis makeup in such films as “The Phantom the Opera” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Lucille Gleasan. who plays the happy but blundering wife in Republic’s Higgins Family comedy, “The Covered Trailer, showing at the Mayfair Theatre to-day, is anything but hapless in real life. Even her husband, James Gleason, admits J“Ever since the day I left the army and married Lucille in Oakland, California, more than 25 years ago, I’ve been a lucky chap And not many men will admit tnat about their wives in public and after »o many years ot married life. Mrs Lxleason intended to become a domestic science teacher, but created a ’ precedent in her family by ' going on the stage. A beautiful girl matches wits with dangerous spies, and the hero falls prey to ,a giant “mechanical man” in “Ihe Iron Monster,” the sixth breath-taking episode of “Tho Phantom Creeps,” 12-chapter Universal serial spectacle which shows to-day at the Mayfair Theatre with Bella Lugosi, Robert Kent, Dorothy Arnold and Regis Toomcy in the leading, roles.