AMUSEMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21543, 15 January 1932, Page 11

AMUSEMENTS

ST. JAMES THEATRE Described by tbe Christchurch Sun as “a talkie of very great merit,” the first of the 1932 Fox Film successes, “ Transatlantic,” will commence to-day at the St. James Theatre. Continuing, the critic says;—“ To the discerning picturegoer the cunning of the director is everywhere apparent in ‘ Transatlantic ’ —in‘ the exceptionally clever camera work from unusual angles that savours more of German than of American film technique, but without the slow development of the former; in the suspenseful weaving together of the threads of intrigue and romance in the various by-plots; in the clear and skilful delineation of the characters; in the smart touches of humour, and in the rapidly-increasing tempo of the action and interest. Then there is the excellent acting to commend the film,” he continues. “ ‘ Transatlantic ’ is an example of the effort being made by American companies to hold their kinema audiences by providing unusually strong casts. It may be said w >th real truth that this is an allstar film, for Edmund Lowe has in support of him such well-known players as Lois Moran, Jean Hersholt, Greta Nissen, Myrna Loy, John Halliday, and Earle Fox. The third factor contributing to the success of ‘ Transatlantic ’ is the story. It contains a real plot; not, as is.so often the case, just a hotch-potch of incidents designed mainly for the purpose of showing off the acting ability of the herp and the shapely legs of the heroine. There is novelty in the setting of the story, a palatial liner crossing from America to Europe. Edmund Lowe shows great histrionic skill as the gambler who turns out to be a gentleman, helping two of the women in distress, proving a match for the scheming of the third, and outwitting the crooks. Although the setting is a ship there is no shipwreck as might have been expected.” There will be a particularly good supporting programme. The box plans are at the Bristol. OCTAGON THEATRE

Such was the success of Paramount’s two juvenile comedy-dramas, “ Tom Sawyer ” and “ Skippy,” that the company has brought the bright characters of “Tom Sawyer” together again, in a second story from Mark Twain, “ Huckleberry Finn.” “Huckleberry Finn,” which will show at the Octagon Theatre, for one week, commencing to-day, brings Jackie Coogan back to the screen in the role of Tom Sawyer. Junior Durkin continues in his role of Huck; Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher; and impudent Jackie Senrl makes more mischief as Sid, Tom’s annoying little brother. The . adult east which won such favour in “ Tom Sawyer ’ is augmented by two popular character actors, Eugene Pallette and Oscar Apfel, for “ Huckleberry Finn.” _ These two funny men are seen as a pair of desperadoes from whom Huck and Tom rescue two innocent young girls. Clara Blandick is again seen as Tom’s worried Aunt Polly, and Jane Harwell re-enacts the role of the good-hearted Widow Douglas. The same attention to production detail which made “ Tom Sawyer ” such an interesting trip into the past century is a feature of “Huckleberry Finn.” A complete village was built and populated. Costumes, customs, and speech idioms were faithfully copied. And the story E regresses with the whole village going usily about the every-day tasks and pleasures which made up the life of the great-grandfathers and great-grand-mothers of the present generation. “ Huckleberry Finn ” carries on the adventures .of the real boys Mark Twain wrote about in “Tom Sawyer.” Huck runs away from home to escape from his father, and, in the search that follows, Tom Sawyer finds him. Together, the boys plan a runaway, fall in with two funny rascals, rescue two innocent girls from the wicked designs of the bad men, and win more honour and renown. Ths direction of this picture is credited to Norman Taurog, who made such a success of “ Skippy ” and “ Forbidden Adventure.” More than 200 youngsters of ail ages add zest to the rollicking romance. The juvenile cast of “ Huckleberry Finn ’ is larger even than that of “ Tom Sawyer ” or “ Skippy,” and the. picture is said to be one of the most highly entertrainipg pictures, for youngsters of all ages, the screen has ever presented. EMPIRE THEATRE

It is difficult to recall offhand a more strikingly graphic and powerful film than “A Free Soul,” which was privately screened at the Empire Theatre on Wednesday. and which will be the feature of the new programme at that theatre for the week commencing to-day. “A Free Soul ” will undoubtedly attract a great deal of attention during the coming week. It is arresting and intelligent in its conception, unusual in the quality of its execution, and remarkable for the fullness of its content. It comprises 8500 feet of full-blooded, courageous drama, enacted by a cast of stars, any single one of whom might be expected to do more than well as the featured player in any average film. Norma Shearer is the feminine star, but in spite of the charm of her manner, the fascination of her personality, and the sheer artistry of her handling of a difficult role, she has keen rivals for the honours of the play in Lionel Barrymore. Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and. to a lesser degree, James Gleason. Norma Shearer displays her usual skill and keen understanding in her delineation of the role of Jan Asche. * She undoubtedly excels herself, and those who see her in “ A Free Soul ” will agree that not even her wonderful showing in “ Let Us Be Gay ” can compare with the portrait which she draw’s in this film. Her part is one -of great and varied opportunity, and she makes the very most of it, rising to dramatic and romantic heights to which she has never' before attained. And, further, she wears her clothes as she has always, to the manner born, a feature of her appearance which cannot fail to interest feminine members of tbe audience. No less W’orthy of notice, however, is Lionel Barrymore for his acting of the part of Stephen Asche, the brilliant barrister addicted to drink, and father of Jan. For his performance in this role he was awarded the gold medal for 1931 for the best male character of the year. At a time when really good pictures are more numerous than ever they were the “ blue riband of Hollywood ” is a distinction worth winning, and it may be assumed from the fact that he secured that award that his interpretation of this powerful and absorbingly interesting role is something very much out of the ordinary, Lionel Barrymore takes his audience through an amazing sequence of scenes and incidents, displaying a rare sense of the dramatic, a complete and full appreciation not only of the requirements of his part, but also of the pitfalls and traps that arc encountered in such a highly dramatic role. But nothing he does in “A Free Soul,” and, for that matter, nothing lie has done in any other film, can equal his eloquent appeal to the jury in the final stages of the film. He works up to a climax of unprecedented power and emotion, and by the decorative melodrama of his acting provides an appropriate finale to a story that will hold the attention from start to finish. Leslie How’ard has less to do, but what the producer requires of him is scarcely less easily done than what Lionel Barrymore achieves. The audience will undoubtedly like How’ard, the quiet and exceedingly polished young Englishman whose star is unquestionably in the ascendant at the present time. Clark Gable, wdio will be remembered for the life-like vigour and conviction of his showings in such films as “The Secret Six” and “ Dunce, Fools, Dance,” has a role particularly suited to his abilities in “ A Free Soul.” As Ace Wilfong. the unscrupulous racketeer and killer, be captures the imagination at his first appearance, drawing a portrait that is ns colourful as it is interesting. Quaintly droll and always amusing, James Gleason finds plenty to do as Eddie, the bodyguard of Jan’s father. He has a style of humour all his own, and provides welcome flashes of comedy in a film that is a remarkable mixture of all the elements of good entertainment. He has lost the knack of being interested and amused who cannot enjoy “A Free Soul." The supporting programme to-day wdll include further appearances by Mr 1 Paul Cullen, the singing organist, and comedy and news items of the usual general interest and variety. The box : plans are at the theatre and the Bristol. STRAND THEATRE S<

Another excellent double-feature programme will commence this evening at the Strand Theatre, the principal film being “The Matrimonial Problem.’' This adaptation of the hilarious French farce enjoyed a phenomenal run in Paris, and ia being received with loud acclaim in

this country. It is an unusual and racy version of the many stories of husbands who left home for one reason or another, returning to find their wives remarried. M. Adolphe Noblet, in the case in hand, is supposed to have been killed in a railway accident five years before the story opens. His wife is happily married, and the mother of a child by the second husband. M. Noblet reappears as a hairdresser, pursued by many ladies. He one day is summoned to his former home, which he has completely forgotten. His wife notices his resemblance to her first partner, and husband No. 2 resents the interest which he does not understand. A hypnotist secretly restores Noblet’s memory to the point where the accident occurred. He now believes himself wed to his first wife, and fails to recall his own later wife and two sets of twins. The final and quite unexpected adjustment comes after a series of excrutiatingly funny haps and mishaps. The cast is composed of Lilyan Tashman, Florence Eldridge. James Gleason, Beryl Mercer, Frank Fay, Marion Byron, Vivian Oakland. Arthur Edmund Carewe, and James A second feature will be “ Sinners' Holiday” a thrilling story of the show world, starring Grant Withers and Evelyn Knapp.

REGENT THEATRE A large audience witnessed the premier screening of “ Palmy Days,” featuring Eddie Cantor, at the midnight matinee at the Regent Theatre last night. Brazenly labelled as pure nonsense, “ Palmy Days ” is Samuel Goldwyn’s successor to the inaugural “Whoopee.” It is a gay,_ comic kind of a story in which Cantor is seen as the unwilling assistant to a gang of fake spiritualists, who hire him out as an efficiency expert to wreck a modernistic bakery that might have come out of an Arabian nights’ fantasy. For no bakery in this world could ever have such a collection of over-dressed and under-dressed beauties ns disport themselves in “Palmy Days.” “ Palmy Days ” seems a logical sten forward in pictures from Goldwyn's “Whoopee.” That brightly coloured festival of fun, music, song, dance and Eddie Cantor more or less served as the last and greatest of the old order of screen musical comedies, owing most of its style to the legitimate stage. The new Cantor film, “ Palmy Days,” strikes out a new field for itself-—one that is certainly to be made large as a new vogue in screen entertainment. For Goldwyn’s chorus girls go through their thrilling dances only when a dance seems to have some rhyme or reason in the story—in a gymnasium, for instance, or at a moonlight party. And Con Conrad’s tuneful songs are heard not to punctuate or stop the story, but as a part of it. The songs and dances become woven into the plot. Cantor is his old self, his beady black eyes still look up at the ever-constant menace that threatens to exterminate him. In “ Palmy Days,” Cantor fulfils his promise in “ Whoopee ” —that he is in pictures to stay, and that the screen has a definite place for him. Eddie is aided and abetted by lanky Charlotte Greenwood. Together, they ramble through the blithe nonsense of the story as hosts and leaders to the battalion of Hollywood’s most decorative femininity. Barbara Weeks, one of Samuel Goldwyn’s newest discoveries dissome, is a not inconsiderable attraction. Miss Weeks shares with Eddie Cantor and Charlotte Greenwood the gay burden of the story, which was written by Cantor, Morrie Ryskind, and David Freedman. It concerns the adventures of Eddie, who is sent as efficiency expert to wreck the_ fantastic bakery of Mr Clark. Eddie is in the hands of a gang of unscrupulous spiritualists. By using Eddie as a dupe, they plan to destroy the plant and be able to buy it cheaply for a rival. Cantor, pursued by a gymnasium teacher (Charlotte Greenwood), breaks into the president’s office just at the moment when the efficiency expert is really expected, and is thus unwittingly forced into reorganising the bakery, its staffs of salegirls and factory workers that would outdo any “ Follies." The story races from the factory to the scented, mystic scene of the spiritualist’s inner sanction, to a garden party of the president, to a trick gymnasium, to an ornate sweet shop—on and on. The picture was directed by Edward Sutherland. Willy Pogany and Captain Richard Day supervised the settings under the super- i vision of Mr Goldwyn. ]

KING EDWARD THEATRE Setting out in entertaining and amusing fashion the foibles of youth—particularly the youth of a large American city—- “ Skippiy,” which heads the current bid at the King Edward Theatre, is a picture well calculated to appeal to all. One of the most remarkable features of the production is the cast which contains the names of Jackie Coogan, Robert Coogan. Jackie Searle, and others. There is a good programme of supporting pictures.