Palmerston Picture Programmes

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 230, 30 September 1935, Page 5

Palmerston Picture Programmes

REGENT THEATRE TO-DAY—"GOLD DIGGERS OF 1035." It lias been two years In the making, but if advance report;! prove true the First National picture "Gold Diggers ot 1955," was well worth waiting for, First National, always famed for magnificent musical spectacles, has outdone itself m this picture, which marks the advent of Busby Berkeley as the director of a complete production Berkeley, it iu claimd, has taken a funny, clever story, gathered together a cast of film favourites that includes Warner Bros.’ outstanding stars, and, with the assistance of morel than 300 of the prettiest dancing girls in Hollywood, has assembled the whole into a tuneful comedy in which his talent for spectacular screen innovations has been given full sway. The director was the musical comedy genius responsible lor tho spectacles in ‘‘l2nd Street,” “Wonder Bar," "Gold Diggers of 1933,” "Footllght Parade” and other musicals. In "Gold Diggers of 1935" he is said to have created the most gorgeous and. unique dance numbers of his career. There are three outstanding specialities including a dance in which 90 snow-white grand pianos actually cavort on the stage. _ Tho dance j team of Ramon and Rosita is also featured. In the cast are Dick Powell, Adolphe jNlenjou, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Joseph Cawthorn, Grant Mitchell, Porotliy Dare and Winifred Shaw. Tlio story is by Robert Lord and Peter Milne. It is a catchy romance with a fashionable summer hotel as tho setting. A wealthy widow, who is essentially penurious, is the target of tlie golddigging propensities of a trio of schemers enacted by Menjou, Cowthorn and Mitchell. The w’idow, which is the funniest role ever essayed by Alice Brady, has two children. .She is trying to marry oft her daughter, Gloria Stuart, to Hugh Plerbert, also a millionaire, but who is more interested in writing articles on snuff than on love. Her son, Frank McHugh, four times married and divorced, falls for tho hotel hostess, and the daughter falls in love with the room clerk in the person of Dick Powell. Glenda Farrell does a little gold digging on her own at tho expense of Hugh Plerbert, but it all ends happily in one of tho most amusing climaxes ever filmed. There arc three remarkable song numbers written

by Harry Warren and A 1 Dubin. KOSY THEATRE LIONEL. BARRYMORE HEADS CAST OP M.-G.-M.’s NEW THRILLER Director Tod Browning shocked thej screen world with his hair-raising “Dra-, cula" and kept audiences on the edges of their seats with the Lon Chaney thril-1 lers; Guy Endoro stunned lovers of shocking mystery with “Werewolf of Paris’’ and “Babouk”; Bela Lugosi has chilled audiences with many shivery scenes, and Lionel Barrymore has gripped the imaginations of millions with his amazing characterisations. They all come together in “Mark of the Vampire,” sensational detective mystery which each hopes is to “top” anything elso in his career. The now Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture is nows showing at the Kosy Theatre. An original story by Guy Eridore and Bernard Schubert, the picture tells the tale of a ghastly crime, laid in the midst of a strange vampire cult. Strange “undead” things that roam in the night, a haunted castle that is the centre of the gruesome cult, a detective who pits his wits against supernatural horrors, figure in the hair-raising story. E. J. Mannix, its producer, gave every rolo a "name” player, even the briefest flash on the screen. Lionel Barrymore.

Bela Lugosi, Jean Hersholt, who scored in "Men in White”; Lionel Atwill, of “Murders in the Wax Museum”; Elizabeth Allan of “David Copperfield”; Jessie Ralph, who played Peggotty in that production; Henry Stephenson of “The Night is Young”; Leila Bennett, New York stage star; Ivan Simpson, Donald Meek, Michael Visaroff, and many others are among its principals. Opposite Lugosi is Carol Boland, the long-hunted “Vampire Woman,” found in the person of a dramatic student at the University' of California playing her first role In the picture. The thrills include tho mysterious murder blamed on vampires, the appearance of the vampire horde, the reincarnation of the heroine’s father as one of tho “Un-Dead,” the bat that turns into a woman, Lugosi’s weird attacks upon Elizabeth Allan, and the amazing denouement in which the detective in the case brings the weird hidden criminals to the light of day. Replicas of old deserted castles, weird churchyards, the den ot the “Witch Woman” are among the sinister settings.