FILMS AND STAGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 262, 3 October 1940, Page 10

FILMS AND STAGE

“Dr. Kildare” Back. The screen’s favourite doctor-hero, Dr. Janies Kildare, will again hold fort'll on the .screen of the: Regent Theatre when the latest “Dr. Kildare” film, “Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case,” starts to-morrow. With Lew Ayres portraying the title role and Lionel Barrymore as his mentor, Dr. Leonard Gillespie, the fourth in the series of medicaldetective stories provides a dramatic glimpse of what goes on when a young internee takes matters into his own hands, acting solely on a hunch. After refusing a well-paying position in a private sanitarium, Ayres returns to his hospital to learn that his friend, S'liepperd Strudwick, has performed what appears to have been bungled brain surgery. Putting facts together and acting on the theory, that ', tho

patient might have been insane before the operation was performed, Ayres, by the use of insulin shock to restore insane people to normalcy, succeeds in vindicating his friend and showing his superiors tltat his judgment was correct. The drama introduces the screen’s first presentation of the actual treatment of insane people by use of insulin to cause shock. Prominent in the cast arc Laraine Day, Shcpperd Strudwick, Samuel S. Hinds, Emma Dunn, Nat Pendleton, Walter Kingsford and Alma Kruger. ,Spills and Thrills. One' of the, biggest stages at the studios where “I See Ice” was made becomes ‘ the exterior of a mammoth ice rink. “Imperial Ice Rink” shines out in huge electric lights; gigantic posters announce that an ice hockey match between two champion teams is taking place that evening. In the entrance; turnstiles are installed with uniformed ticket-inspectors, and round about arc. pay-boxes, cigarette machines, shop windows displaying skating

wear, arid large signs to direct people to their scats. There are people waiting about inside the entrance, others waiting outside watching the crowd go in, and the usual hustle and bustle of a “big night.” In this scone George Formby gets a false -ticket for tlio show, and on presenting it is promptly thrown out. Fortunately, however, Betty Stockfield who, in the film is the wife of the owner of the rink, spots George Formby and smuggles him in, whereupon everything goes welL for a while for the world’s No. 1 comedian. For a while is right, for after she has managed the smuggling the only seat Miss CJtockfield. can find for him is in the referee’s box, and before Formby knows it bo is on the ice, with a whistle in his hand, “refereeing” the big match. “I See Ice” commences screening at the Kosy Theatre to-mor-row.

“East Lynne” is about to be remade in Hollywood. It will tell once again the sad story of Lady Isabel, with Barbara Stanwyck as the misunderstood heroine and John Boles as her stern and unrelenting husband. It has been made once before as a talkie with Clive Brook and Ann Harding.

Laugh-Provoking Sequences. “Turnabout,” based on the highly humorous Thorne Smith novel, which comes to the State Theatre to-morrow, is one of the sprightliest modern comedies seen in many a moon. The starring cast is headed by Carole Landis, John Hubbard, Adolpho Menjou, Mary Astor, Yeree Teasdale, Donald Meek, William Gargan and Franklin Pagborn. “Turnabout” is swift, witty, and gay entertainment. It has excitement, suspense, surprise, and humour. Its story, concerns a young rnodern couple who complain about their respective lots in life—he is a successful advertising man, she a comely society matron. Their complaints give little god ltarn an idea —and lie acts upon it. lie exchanges their personalities and gives them a chance to find out about the other’s, sides of the question. This, ol course, leads to hilarious complications in the advertising and social world. What follows causes a laugh a minute,

lively excitement, and many unexpected incidents. “Dead End Kids” Again. The “Dead End Kids On Dress Parade,” starring the “Dead End Kids,” will open on Saturday at the Meteor Theatre. In tliis picture, the famous group of screen toughs do a complete turnabout and become model American youths in a modern American military academy. Still the scraphappy hooligans, however, Leo Gorcey leads the “Kids,” this time as a-city lad who comes to military school to show the cadets a thing or two. How Gorcey gets a little discipline himself by the other “Dead Enders,” , Billy Halop, Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, and Bernard Punsley, forms the basis of this lively film of life in a boys’ military academy; Those who have seen the “Kids” in their previous successes like “Angels With Dirty Faces,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” and ‘.‘Crime School” will find the new departure a welcome one, for tho talents of those youths, while slightly on the

rough side, arc none the less appreciated. “The Dead End Kids On Dress Parade,” features in addition to the “Dead End Kids,” John Litel, Frankie Thomas and Cissic Loftus. Devastation in London. Some graphic pictures of bomb devastation in London and of aerial warfare over England and the Channel will be shown in a newsreel entitled “London’s Reply to' German Claims,” which, will be screened at the Regent and Meteor Theatres on Saturday only. This film was posted in London on September 5 and travelled by air mail across tho Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, making the journey at a rate of more than a thousand miles a day. The “short”, is an actual pictorial record of a tour of London made by a neutral observer on August 23, 1940, just after German broadcasts had asserted that the city was a mass of ruins and the morale "of t'he people seriously upset. All the famous landmarks of London are shown in a complete state of preservation and as the cameraman goes up and down the streets one will see how the people arc facing up to the terrific onslaught by the German air force by going about their business in the ordinary way.

Unusual Racing Film. Elmer Gantry, blind horse who jumps steeplechaso hurdles with all the courage and sureness of a welltrained and sure-sighted hunter, is the chief actor in “Pride of the Bluegrass,” the racing picture opening tomorrowihg at the Mayfair Theatre. There is also a lino cast of human performers, headed hy Edith Fellows, James McCallion, Granville Bates, De Wolf Hopper and Frankie Burke. In the picture Gantry is. a racehorse, first a flat racer and then a steeplechaser, who is stricken blind and yet learns to respond so bravely and confidently to the voiced commands of his rider that he wins the world’s greatest steeplechase, the Grand National at Aintree, England. Interwoven with the story of the horse, there is also a moving tale about the human beings whose lives touch his, particularly the' story of the boy jockey and trainer, played by young McCallion. Hiding Gantry in the Kentucky Derby as the horse goes blind, Jimmy is banned from racing. But lie trains him so that between them they can win a double vindication at the Aintree Grand National Steepechase. Jimmy is the rider while Edith Fellows is his assistant. A Star’s Biography—No. 75. ltosemary Lane is one of four sisters given to the entertainment world by juidianola, lowa. Like her sisters— Lola, Leota and Priscilla (Pat)—Rosemary Lane attended high school and Simpson College in lndianola where she appeared in operettas and plays and also took an active part in sports. Her childhood ambition was to be a concert pianist. At 1G Rosemary Lane, who had been attending the Fagin Dramatic (school in New York City with Pat, one day stopped at a music company in Tin Pan Alley to go over some arrangements. The girls were heard singing by’ file president of .the company and he immediately arranged an audition for them before Fred Waring, the orchestra leader. Rosemary and Pat have won the job with Waring and thus followed their older sisters into show business, even dropping the family name, “Mullicail,” in favour of the professional name “Lane,” used, by Lola and Leota. Waring soon popularised Rosemary as a glorified Betty Co-Ed and typical American college girl on the air. AY hen Waring and his Pehnsylvanians. went to Hollywood in 3937 to appear in “Varsity Show,” Rosemary proved a hit. Placed under contract to a film studio, she played leads in ‘‘Hollywood Hotel,” “Gold-Diggers in Paris.” “Blackwell’s Island,” “Oklahoma Kid” and “The Return of Dr. X-” AVith her sisters Lola and Priscilla, Rosemary has appeared in “Four Daughters,” “Daughters Courageous” and “Four AVives,” which will be shown at the Regent Theatre to morrow, week. Rosemary Lane is as yet unmarried. Her diversions are watching football, tennis and hockey and reading, particularly the classics, philosophy, and biographies. She is intensely interested in politics.