Musical Zooms to Highest Altitudes

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 71, 25 March 1936, Page 11

Musical Zooms to Highest Altitudes

“TO BEAT' THE BAND" IS ON DOUBLE BILL (State: Screening To-day.) Super-charged comedy interspersed 'with merry melodies and fortified with a cast of comics who are “tops,” establishes KKOKadio’s “To Beat the Band” as excellent entertainment. This streamlined musical zooms to high altitudes with such master pilots as Hugh Herbert, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Roger Fryor, Fred Keating, Ray Mayer, and the original California Collegians at the laugh controls. ■ Hugh Herbert is named heir to a fortune of 59,000,000 dollars by an eccentric old aunt. She stipulates, however, that her nephew, who is in love with a stunning blonde debutante, Phyllis Brooks, must marry a widow within three days. Roger Pryor, a disillusioned blade, is side-tracked at Herbert’s apartment while bent on suicide. Herbert, who wants both the object of his affections and the fortune, enters into a compact with Pryor. But he overlooks the connivance of his lady lawyer, Helen Broderick, Fred Keating, a dance band baron who is also named in the will, and even his loyal but loony butler, Eric Blore, But why go on and spoil your pleasure when you see this rollicking comedy? “To Beat the Band” brings together three new teams: Hugh Herbert and Helen Broderick, Roger Pryor and Phyllis Brooks, and Johnny Mercer and Matt Malneck, song smithies par excellence. The Mereer-Malncck tunes are interpreted by the new movie orchestra, the California Collegians, and other members of the cast, including handsome Ronald Graham, Evelyn Poe, Bill Carey, Roger Pryor, Fred Keating and Johnny Mercer. Specialities arc presented by the California Collegians, Sonny Lamont, 270 pounds of acrobatic action, and Nick Condos, facile-footed dancer. The comedy was directed by Ben Stoloff under the supervision of Zion Myers.