AMUSEMENTS

Northern Advocate, 13 July 1936, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS

THE REGENT For sheer drama and vital force there are few screen plays to equal “Dangerous,” which opened at the Regent Theatre on Saturday. It is the kind of picture that requires an exceptional cast to make the most of the characters involved in the plot and Warner Bros, evidently recognised this by placing in the leading roles not only players of rare talent, but who fit their parts with the utmost perfection. The story, which unfolds a realistic slice of life and paints with great force the inner conflict of a tempestuous woman at war with herself and the world, gives Miss Davies her first opportuxxlty to present a truly vivid character study. “Dangerous” is the stox*y of a woman burning with the zest of living, a flaming, brilliant rocket that flashes upward it> the pinnacle of success and then drops to sizzle in the gutter. It the story of a beautiful and fascinating actress who is overwhelmed by her own terrific desires and whose egotism and selfishness bring ruin to herself and the man who love her. Franchot Tone has the role of a somewhat conventional man of society and business,, who is swept off his feet by the fatal fascination of this actress whose power over men remains even after she has drunk herself into a sodden harrigan of the slums. But the actress herself actually turns him back to his former life and the woman with whom he had broken, in a tremendous scene, in which she, as a matter of atonement. sacrifices hex’self and the real I cve that has eventually come to her

THE PLAZA Lively and amusing melodrama makes “Rendezvous.” a Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer picture, now screening at the Plaza, one of the best films presented for some time. With polished acting, witty dialogue and an exciting plot, the production challenges comparison with “The Thin Man,” one of the most popular films made in Hollywood in recent years.' The theme deals with international espionage during the Great War. Bill Gordon (William Powell) is the one man in America who can invent for the Government a code which the enemy will be unable to decipher. But unfortunately he prefers to hide his identity in the uniform of an officer so that he may serve his country by fighting the Germans rather than by conjuring with the alphabet in a Washington office. Just as he is about to set off for the troopship which is to carry him to France, he receives a note ordering him to report to the Assistant Secretary of State for War in Washington. The girl, Joel (Miss Rosalind Russell), to whom he had said a passionate and amusing farewell and to whom he had divulged his real identity, happened to be the daughter of the Assistant Secretary. She tells the department who he is because she is as anxious to keep him away from the firing line as he is to get there. The principal action of the story is concexmed with Powell’s efforts to round up a gang of spies which had been intercepting information about the movements of American troopships en route to Europe. After considerable plotting and counterplotting, there is a highly exciting climax in which Powell and the heroine arc captured by the spies. William Powell’s debonair nonchalance and urbane shrewdness are admirably suited to the spirit of the story and he receives excellent support from Miss Russell, who acts delightfully in a part which was originally written for Myrna Loy.