GEORGE FORMBY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23718, 27 January 1939, Page 5

GEORGE FORMBY

NEW FILM FOR EMPIRE Famous in films, over the radio and on the English music hall stage, George Formby, is now concentrating mainly upon motion pictures, the success of his latest comedy, “ It’s in the Air,” which comes to the Empire Theatre to-day, being anticipated to find a response that will add to the already tremendous public his films enjoy in Great Britain and New Zealand. In both countries his popularity equals that of the leading Hollywood stars. With Gracie Fields, he is the high-est-salaried British screen star, and with his fame expanding with every film the Associated Talking Pictures studios have mapped out an ambitious schedule for his future. More money and more time will be devoted to his productions, and there will be no efforts spared in determination to further his popularity with pictures that, from every angle of production merit, should match the best of Hollywood’s lavish entertainments. “ It’s in the Air ” is the first of the group of new season Formby subjects to be made on the higher financial budget, and this riotous story of what happens to George when he “ accidentally ” joins the Royal Air Force, is said to be indescribably funny George Formby does duty as a despatch rider, careering madly over the countryside on a motor cycle combination. From the minute he “ joins up ” with the Air Force audiences will be waiting for the inevitable sequence when Formy takes to the air. And when it does arrive, everybody gets a generous money’s worth of riotous fun, because he finds himself alone in the heavens aboard a plane about which he knows nothing, performing weird figures in the sky, looping the loop, swooping earthwards in hair-rais-ing dives, loosing live bombs and a hail of machine-gun bullets—-in short, doing everything but break his neck. He also finds time and place to sing three excellent numbers and has a romance with the sergeant-major’s daughter.