AMUSEMENTS

Northern Advocate, 5 November 1934, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS

THE PLAZA. A programme which combines the best in English comedy, with a highclass and most intriguing detective drama, is current at the Plaza The gay and glamorous atmosphere of the “Gay Nineties” has been recaptured perfectly in “Those Were The Days,” adapted from Sir Arthur Pinero’s well-known stage play, “The Magistrate.” Will Hay, the famous actor makes an impressive film debut, as Posket, the straight-loced, but kindly, pillar of justice, whose wife, has deceived him as to her age, thus compelling her most unusual son to pose as a sixteen-year-old boy. This deception is the cause of all the ensuing comical complications, for when Mrs Posket hears that an Army friend of her first husband intends to visit them, she goes with her sister to warn him against mentioning ages. The quest leads them to the Regimental Club and thence to scandalous music halls, where in the meantime Posket has been persuaded to go by his bright step-son. The uproarious sequence which follows is superb, and the picture is a delightful one. A number of popular variety stai’s put over some of the good old favourites in a manner which did not fail to arouse* the audience to enthusiasm, but withal the presentation does hot fall to the “song and dance” which cheapens many inferior produfctiorts. Ranking with the most absorbing and baffling of the Van Dine detective mysteries, “The Kennel Murder Case” deals with the mysterious death of a collector of Chinese art under circumstances which suggest suicide until Philo Vance begins to unravel a cunningly conceived crime. Seven persons are found to have both a motive for the deed and an opportunity to have committed it, and the solving of the problem leads up to a gripping climax. To complete a recommended progi’amme is a Walt Disney coloured cartoon, “Santa’s Work Shop.”