King’s Theatre

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 160, 10 July 1939, Page 2

King’s Theatre

“ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND ’» Acclaimed in the United States as the best musical lilin mado in Hollywood this year, “Alexanders Ragtime Band,” a 20th Century-Fox production concludes a two-day season at the King’s Theatre to-night at 7.45 p.m. The picture is an all-round triumph for tho producer, Darryl Zanuck, the director, Henry King, and a splendid cast headed by Alice Faye, Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. The hearty vigour of earlier musical films mado by Zanuck has been skilfully blended with a taste and aublety of production smoothly, almost effortlessly, attained and rarely so conspicuous in a film of thia type. Directing his first all-musical film, Henry King has developed his subject with a skill and a disregard for conventional cliches that account for much of the film’s fine quality. Bo inspired ia his handling of his material that it is no exaggeration to say a number of the scenes are as movingly realistic as any in his highly-successful rural drama, ‘‘State Fair.” The three leading players play their parts with impeccable sincerity and Alice Faye, in particular, rises superbly to the greater opportunities she is given. It is the music of Irving Berlin, one of the most competent of living ballad-makers, that provides the film with most of its ruaterial. Taking its title from Berlin’s song of the same name, a pieco composed in 1011, the film presents renderings of 25 other popular songs written by Berlin in the past 25 years. Among them are “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,’* “Remember,” “*ay It With Music” and “Cheek to Cheek.** Many of the songs have been skilfully treated "either to contribute to the narrative of the picture or to provide a note of diverting comedy.