ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 142, 17 May 1941, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

State Theatre. —Bristling with spicy situations and smart dialogue, and cleverly blending emotional drama with sophisticated comedy, "Play Girl” stars Kay Francis in a role tailor-made to her versatile talents. In sharp contrast to her characterisations in "Little Men” and Deamia Durbin’s “It’s a Date.” Kay Francis”s role in “Play Girl” presents her as a glamorous fortune hunter who has lived by her wits. Thanks to her cleverly planned breach of promise suits she had done right 'veil for herself until, on her last two campaigns, she draws blanks. Although she does not look a day older than 30 (she is really 40), she feels she is getting passe. Struck with the brilliant idea of carrying on her man-baiting campaign _by proxy, she takes a beautiful but penniless young girl of 19. teaches her all the tricks sin', knows for fleecing wealthy play beys, and together they form a unique partnership, cashing in on the girl's youth and beauty ami her own experience. From New York to Chicago they cut a mighty swathe through the bankrolls of unsuspecting but susceptible males, while the young girl carries a secret love in her heart for a happy-go-lucky cowboy who changed a tyre for them on a highway months previously.

Mayfair Theatre. —■Followers of the popular "Hopalong” Cassidy series of action pictures will bo glad to know that their In-™. William Boyd, who sustained a fractured leg while making one of the previous pictures, is back. lie returns to the screen in “Doomed Caravan,” a tale of "agon freighting days on the plains, which shows to-day at the Mayfair Theatre, and, according to Hollywood advice, he is as lit as over and ready to give out with the vim and vigour which lias characterised his former appearances. Boyd was hurt when his famous horse, “Topper,” shied at a rattler on location in Kernville, California, and pinned him against a tree. Dealing with the difficult period "hen youth merges into manhood, Columbia’s

"Military Academy,” the associate feature at the .Mayfair Theatre, presents a most amazing story that will appeal to parents and youngsters alike. The film tells a dramatic talc of the ambitions, dreams and conflicts of lads on the threshold of life. M,etoor Thoatre. —Romance, adventure and a star-studded cast arc the unbeatable ingredients that make up Warner Bros.' new film, "The ltoad to ’Frisco,” showing at the .Meteor Theatre to-day. Featuring George Baft, Ann Sheridan, Ida l.upino and Huinphiey Bogart ir. an all-star cast, :iio swiftly paced film packs plenty cl laughs, love and excitement. Joe Fabrini, played by George Baft, is a cold blooded fcliow who thinks there isn’t a girl in the world who can get him to fall for her. He laughs, at-his brother, played by Humphrey Bogart, when he tells how he would like to have a job that allowed him to have his evenings free to spend with his wife (Calc L’age’s role). Bogart is bitterly resentful of the fact that his work allows him to catch only occasional glimpses of his wife and is tortured when other girls remind him of her. Joe always, claimed that he did not go in for that refmanlio si till’. At least lie thought he did not until he met a waitress, played by Ann Sheridan. Ann gives a deeply moving portrayal of a girl whose sentimentality is hidden behind flippant, wisecracks. And Baft is great as the fellow who lets neither her wisecracks nor her love go unanswered.

Regent Theatre. —In the tradition of the great stage and film success “I he I-uek of the Navy.” which played long seasons in the war of 1914-18, is the M-G-M Brit-i-li film “Contraband.” a rattling good thriller, full of the tang of the sea. Swiftly the action changes from contraband detection methods by the Royal Navy in the Fnglish Channel to pulse-quickening encounters with a nest of Nazi spies, concealed in the night haunts of wartime London, following the outbreak of war in 1939. Stark realism is the keynote of the film in consequence of the assistance given i lie British National-American producers by the Royal Navy. The actual methods employed in blockade running, as the Navy keeps its vigil in the Channel, are faithfully and thrillingly portrayed. As the story unfolds in tiio fashionable section of London, scenes in the completely blacked-out streets, hazardous with a torrent of traffic, add a note of authenticity. Tall, handsome Conrad Veidt, as Captain Andersen, skipper of a Danish liner, .plays convincingly the part of an adventurous seafarer following a beautiful British girl spy into the coils of underground Nazidom.