ENTERTAINMENTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 21 August 1939, Page 2

ENTERTAINMENTS

CURRENT ATTRACTIONS STATE: ONLY TWO MORE DAYS TO SEE A SCREEN EPIC “Gunga Din,” filmed on a vast scale by RKO Radio, falls into the category of colourful screen melodrama in which lusty comedy, tender romance, heroic' sacrifice and martial magnifience blend ■ into one glorious adventure of living. } loving, fighting and dying with the ; British Army on India’s turbulent frontier —some fifty years ago. George Stevens produced and directed the i picture. WEDNESDAY: A DOUBLE FEATURE ! SPECIAL Outstanding amongst the English j directors Alfred Hitchcock waited a long time after his direction of “Sabotage” before commencing another j ; picture, “Young and Innocent.” The fact of the matter is that Mr Hitchcock 1 absolutely refuses to direct a film which ,he does not consider to be the type 1 | which his own particular style and i genius of direction is best suited to j ! handle. And so Alfred Hitchcock, who j lias made at least one major world- i wide film success every year, sat down, i after he had completed “Sabotage,” and avidly commenced on a pile of manu- ' scripts. For six months he read and reread stories before selecting “Young ' and Innocent.” Also on the same programme. “Not Wanted on Voyage,” is one of the most deceptivclj' concocted mystery stories of the year, with new and thrilling “twists” that will puzzle the most expert fan at every turn. Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon are featured in the screen play, playing two adventurers who, even as they kiss, dream of the world’s most beautiful ruby necklace, and plan to outwit each other for its possession. The film is a perilpacked adventure that flashes excitingly from ocean liner to city streets. COMMENCING FRIDAY, “PYGMALION” In the film version of Bernard Shaw’s j famous comedy, “Pygmalion,” starring Leslie Howard, the audience will hear, tripping from the lips of Wendy Hiller, that famous line (in full) which roused world-wide controversy when, as a i play, it was first produced in England. I Controversy of a different nature took : place at Pinewood Studies during the ! making of the film, when producer ! Gabriel Pascal, Anthony Asquith, who j co-directed with Leslie Howard, and the star, himself, were conjecturing as to whether the Censor would permit the use of Bernard Shaw’s original dialogue. They decided not to make a special issue of the particular scene under discussion, firstly because they agreed that too much importance had already been attached to the use of the word; and secondly, because it was the ! natural thing for Eliza Doolittle, the ! Cockney flower-girl to say. MAJESTIC: “YOU CAN’T TAKE IT j WITH YOU” The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave the ' Columbia picture, “You Can’t Take It With You,” two of its most highly coveted awards for the year, one for the best film of the year and the other for the best direction—that of Frank Capra. New Zealand audiences are signifying in no uncertain way their endorsement of the merit of those awards by big attendances and enthusiastic laughter and applause wherever it has been screened. The story is a brilliant ccmedy whose original merit is proved by the fact that it won the coveted F ulitzer Prize in addition to the screen awards. Its screen treatment needs little testimony beyond a realisation of the fact that it was directed by Frank Capra who made “Lost Horizon,” and, in the field of comedy, he made “Mr Deeds Goes to Town.” In “You Can't Take It With You” he preserves his own incomparable standard of artistic direction, and turns out an even finer picture than his previous epics for the reason that he had such outstanding original material to work on. This is a comedy which also presents a compelling moral. It is, primarily, the story of Mr Vanderhof and his ridiculously eccentric household, whose members, like Grandpa Vanderhof himself, are content to live without worrying themselves with the world’s ambition of becoming wealthy. A clashing contrast with that outlook is provided by the Kirby family—millionaires and social celebrities. The two families are brought together by a romance between young Kirby and Mr Vanderhof’s grand-daughter, Alice Sycamore, and, from the impact of one set of ideas against the other, there emerges a result which is at once an absorbing story, a delicious comedy, j and, above ail, grand entertainment, j Frank Capra has peopled “You Can’t Take It With You” with a really notable i cast. It is a big cast too, for the story I has at least twenty outstanding char- ; acters, and among the notables are Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur, James j Stuart, Mischa Auer, Edward Arnold, ; Spring Byington, Ann Miller and H. B. j V\ arner. REGENT: COMMENCING TO-NIGHT:, GENE AUTRY IN “THE YODELIN* KID FROM TINE RIDGE” AND “OVER THE WALL.” Gene Autry, popular western star returns in his latest western musical “Yodelin’ Kid from Pine Ridge.” Gene’s heroine in the current picture is Betty Bronson, the girl who won the heart of a nation several years ago with her role of “Peter Pan.” Gene, according to the script, has become estranged | from his lather because he took sides j against the elder Autry in a cattle war, Iso he leaves his home, and his sweet- ! heart Milly, to seek his fortunes in the 1 world outside pine ridge. He joins up i with a rodeo and when two years later he returns to Pine Ridge he once more seeks to help his father. The fathers of both Gene and Milly are mysteriously killed, and the crime is pinned on Gene. Local radicals are about to lynch him. but Gene stages a spcctaular gaol break and proves in a thrilling manner who arc the real ones responsible. “Over The Wall,” a gripping melodrama of a man falsely imprisoned for murder and his subsequent rise to fame by means of a beautiful singing voice. Starring Dick Foran, popular Warner Bros, star recently transferred from westerns, the picture’s love element is supplied by June Travis, one of the loveliest leading ladies in Hollywood to-day. Written by Warden Lewis E. Lawes of Sing Sing, the stor}’ is one which smacks of real life and high drama with plenty of punch provided in the right places.