ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 257, 27 September 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

KOSY. THE; AT RE

“THE PLAINSMAN.”

Handsome Gary Cooper is cast as Cecil B. DeMille’s “Wild Bill” Hickok in “The Plainsman,” and lovely Jean Arthur portrays ' “Calamity Jane,” famous frontiorwoman who loved the silent, hard-light-ing- peace officer, but could not have him. They are a' far "different pair in “The Plainsman” than they were in “Mr Deeds,” and yet their assignment to the leading, romantic roles is regarded as a master stroke of casting. Cooper is widely known for his portrayals of the outdoor man-of-action, soldier-of-fortune and seek-er-after-danger. “Wild Bill,” who was sent into the West by the Government in tho early seventies to find out who was responsible for selling guns to the Indians, was all of that. “Calamity Jane,” on the other hand, was' a hard-bohed beauty, equally familiar with shooting irons and the bullwhacker’s whip. There was something of the tomboy about “Calamity Jane” which is particularly adaptable to tho hoydenish Miss Arthur. The second' big feature on tho same programme is “Doctor Rhythm,’’ starring Ding Crosby, a fashionable physician posing as an officer of the law to save his l>est friend’s job. He finds a policeman’s lot is not a happy one when his first assignment is to serve as the personal bodyguard of Beatrice Lillie in Paramount’s “Doctor Rhythm.” Duly blends pleasantly with love when Boa orders him _ to guard her pretty niece, Mary Carlisle, who wants to run away with a gang-ster. But music has charms, even for a spoiled girl, and a-fter a few inoculations of Dr. Bing’s crooning, Mary decides to engage her bodyguard on a lifo-timo. contract. METEOR THEATRE. “THE EARL OF CHICAGO.” Given a story that defies all Hollywood formula, Robert Montgomery scores a spectacular success in iho most unusual and exciting motion picture of the year, “The Earl of Chicago,” now showing at tho Meteor Theatre. Tho film is based on a situation as unique, dramatic, humorous and surprising -as any ever brought to the screen, the .story, of Silky Kitrnount, a Chicago gangster, 'who becomes an English Earl by inheritance. The .charaelerisation is an adventure for Montgomery, who gives an always convincing and fascinating portrayal in a new role lor him. His Silky starts out as a- straight gangster character, diffeient only in Montgomery’s interpretation of the criminal mind. But in the latter English sequences of the picture. the gangster undergoes a subtle transition as he learns the meaning of noblesse oblige, that nobility of birth demands nobleness of character. The gangster is not regenerated, but kills a-pal who double-crosses him and is tried for murder in tho House of Lords by his peers and is. convicted. While he remains the gangster to the end iri language and mannerisms, ho goes to his death like a gentleman. An oddity of this picture, is the fact that while every scene is played for dranja it is often hilariously funny, as ia the scene when Silky rehearses ancient English ceremony and tradition for his introduction to the House of Lords, and his bewilderment when confronted with English ritual. Sharing honours with Montgomery arcEdward Arnold, who plays Silky’s pa! and subsequently turns tho tables on him, Reginald Owen its the English solicitor, and Edmund Gweun as Silky’s English butler who teaches him the meaning of true democracy.