ENTERTAINMENTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 13 March 1933, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

“ON OUR SELECTION." MAJESTIC, TO=NIGHT Australia lias made a picture —an AllAustralian talkie of an All-Australian story, "On Our Selection." Ken Hal! the young director attached to the Ciriesound- Studios, held the directorial reins of the production. Hut he did not'direct, it all on his own. He had the whole I’enrith-Castlereagh-Nepean district — every mother’s soil and daughter lending him a hand. The conversation of the countryside was liberally sprinkled with the jargon of the studio —“Shoot ! "Hold That!" “Cut!" "Meet you on location at 2 o'clock,” were expressions as common as “how cl’you do" used to be Ken Hall, a director, and Bert Bailey, as producer, made an ideal combination lor “The Selection,” which breathes the veiy spirit of Australia—especially in the modern treatment accorded it in the talkie version—and who is there in the entertainment business of to-day who knows his Australian better than Bert Bailey? No matter in what setting or in what set of circumstances Ken Hall decided to place Mum, Dad, Kate, Li I, Joe and Uncle and the rest of the Rudd family, Bert Bailey could tell him in a flash just how each character would react —what each would do or say. Is he not Dad, and are they not his own family and life-time friends? Bert gathered about him most of the old original cast which has travelled with him for a score of years to every township of Australia which can boast a. hall and a bill-poster. From director to smallest extra each man and woman on the job'is an Australian. He had with him, too, his old manager, Jack Soutar, who thoroughly enjoyed himself scouring the countryside seeking the hire of irascible bulls to wreck Dave’s humpy and chase.' his mo-ther-in-law, a herd of steers, frisky kangaroos, kookaburras who will laugh at the right moment, and such like extras. Retaining all the laughs of the grand old play and revealing to the world the real Australia of 10-day, “On Our Selection,’ which comes to the Majestic Theatre on Saturday, is the type of picture made to make you laugh. Of course, there’s a few tears to punctuate the laughs, and the rest is more laughs. It is a fine screen entertainment!

“STRANGE JUSTICE,” REGENT, TCLNIGHT Just how a- conspiracy can send a man to the death cell in Sing Sing, convicted of a murder he did not commit—a murder that never took place, in fact —is shown in RKO Radio Pictures’ “Strange Justice,” screening to-night at the Regent Theatre. A banker who lias embezzled funds fakes his own murder with a body out of the pauper’s morgue, and arranges a chain of evidence against his rival for the affections of a pretty hat check gifl. The boy is tried and convicted. Only a last-minute change of heart on the part of the. banker snatches his life from the electric chair. Norman Foster, Marian Marsh and Reginald Denny are the three sides of this triangle which also involves in its dramatic angles Richard Bennett, Irving Pichel and Nydia Westman. The plot carries the spectator through a whirl of metropolitan life, with its profligacy, its bc-hind-doors secrets and its pitfalls. The story builds rapidly into a complication that makes the hero an easy prey. The title itself reflects on the laws of circumstantial evidence which make it possible for such an event to happen. Sympathy is at all times with the victim and his sweetheart, and sometimes even with one of the plotters. Another sympathetic figure is the crusading lawyer who is enlisted in the desperate attempt to save the youth.