AMUSEMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24450, 8 November 1940, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS

THE NEW PROGRAMMES OCTAGON THEATRE " Swanee River," which commences a season to-day at the Octagon Theatre, faithfully tells the story of Foster's life as he actually lived it. His life contained all the dramatic ingredients—all the romance, the comedy, and the colour —which go into the making of a great motion picture. Few liberties were taken with the facts, for there was no need to" do more than portray them faithfully. In beautiful Technicolor, Swanee River " takes moviegoers back to the romantic, colourful days of Foster's time, when minstrels and river boats were popular. It shows his happy young manhood, depicts his early struggles, the introduction of his song by Christy's Minstrels, his meeting with and marriage to " Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," portrays his rapid 'rise to fame and happy life with his wife and daughter. Then, with relentless realism, " Swanee River" shows Foster's emotional instability, his disillusions and disappointments, his gradual disintegration, and eventual death in a shabby Bowery rooming house. Among the songs Zanuck has chosen to highlight " Swanee River " are " The Old Folks at Home" (Swanee River), "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," " Old Black Joe," written for an aged negro servant of the McDowells: "Oh! Susannah!" "My Old Kentucky Home," " De Camptown Races," and " Ring, Ring, de Banjo." These numbers are played and sung in the production, while two of Foster's other charming songs. "Beautiful Dreamer " and " Soiree Polka," are also heard. The film stars Don Ameche in the title role, Andrea X,eeds, and Al Jolson. Box clans are at the theatre and Begg's. REGENT THEATRE Robert Montgomery, whose talents for comedy are well known, oddly enough scored two of his biggest hits in "Night Must Fall," which won him nomination for the Academy Award, and " The Big House," both dramatic character studies. Now he has been given another opportunity for character portrayal in the most unusual motion picture of the year, "The Earl of Chicago" which will be screend at the Regent to-day. During a visit to Washington, while preparing for the picture. Montgomery visited J. Edgar Hoover.

a personal friend, and did research on the idiosyncrasies of gangsters. Among other items, he picked up one that made Silky an interesting gang character. He learned' the surprising fact that there are a number of big shot gangsters who have a phychopathic fear of guns, and this queer mental quirk about guns mases Silky's distorted nersonality different from any screen gangster yet pictured by Hollywood. A production highlight is Silky's trial sequence after he has committed a murder in England, which taKes place in the House of Lords. Such a triai has never before been pictured, although it is an English tradition dating back to the twelfth century that a lord can be tried on a felony charge only by a jury of his peers. The box plans are at the theatre and the D.I.C. ; GRAND THEATRE Cesar Romero is seen as O. Henry's gallant outlaw character in the main feature at the Grand Theatre. In "Viva 'Cisco Kid" he carries on the tradition set by Warner Baxter in the earlier days of talking pictures. The 'Cisco Kid has , a very high opinion of himself as a ! " ladies* man," and it is not surprising, therefore, that he meets and falls in love with the attractive girl star, Jean Rogers. Always having a little quixotic gallantry up his sleeve, 'Cisco's best-laid plans as a breaker of the law go astray in his desire to help the daughter of a dishonest father. In support is a well-presented Edgar Wallace mystery story, " The Missing People." The sleuth in this is J. G. Reeder, typical Wallace character. The dry wit of Will Fyffe is admirably suited for this role. Mr Reeder sets out to discover why 27 people have disappeared and»unearths a very shady and interesting " business " organisation. Box plans are at the theatre and Begg's. STATE THEATRE Anne Shirley and Patric Knowles, two of Hollywood's most popular young personalities, make their debut as a romantic team in the screen version of L. M. Montgomery's "Anne of Windy Poplars" to, clay at the State Theatre. "Anne of Windy Poplars" is a warmly human down-to-earth drama of a school teacher's struggle to win the confidence and friendship of the town where' she is stationed after all doors have been closed to her by the hostility engendered by a powerful family who wanted the position for one of their own clan and hoped to force her to resign. Anne Shirley again brings to the character of Anne, from whom she took her own name, the spontaneity and sensitive naturalness which brought her stardom in "Anne of Green Gables." A homespun, romantic drama. "Anne of Windy Poplars,"an RKO Radio film, also features in important roles James Ellison, Henry Travers, Slim Summervllle, Elizabeth Patterson, Louise Campbell. Joan Carroll, Katharine Alexander. Minnie Dupree, Alma Kruger, and Marcia Mae Jones. The box plans are at the theatre and Begg's. / EMPIRE THEATRE " Virginia City," starring Errol Flynn and Miriam Hopkins, will be screened today at the Empire Theatre. Newly-made millionaires and multi-millionaires of the day were by no means undivided in their sympathies for North or South for the Civil War was in progress. Millions were turned over to help the Union cause to win. Millions were secretly hoarded to be sent to the capital of the Confederacy in Richmond. Virginia. When the picture opens, news of the plot has been discovered by Kerry Bradford, a Northern officer, at the time a prisoner in Libby Prison. Escaping, he joins his outfit and is finally commissioned to waylay the twenty-four-wagon gold train. This dashing part Flynn plays with all the verve he displayed in ' The Adventures of Robin Hood." and in the phenomenal 1 ::' successful " Dodge City." In Virginia City Kerry meets Julia Hayne—Miriam Hopkins—a Southern girl who is acting as a spy and to further the cause is an entertainer in the lurid Sacarac Saloon. Battles, murder and sudden death threaten the heroine and the hero, too, and at the end though the Northerners win, the gold mysteriously disappears. The truth of the adventure adds interest to the drama. Others who play prominent roles are Randolph Scott as an officer of the Confederacy, Alan Hale and Guin " Big Boy " Williams, and Humphrey Bogart as the villainous John Murreli. STRAND THEATRE Betty Jane Rhodes, glamorous-voiced radio songstress, sings for the first time on the screen the song sensation, " Oh. Johnnv, How You Can Love," in Universal's gay musical romance of that title, which is the main attraction at the Strand Theatre. Tom Brown and Peggy Moran have featured roles in the swiftly-paced story which is said to blend laughter and comedy with moments of thrilling suspense. SunportinK players include Juanita Quigley. Allen Jenkins. Donald Meek, Isabel Jewell, and Horace McMahon. I " You Lucky People." Is one of Tommy I Trinder's well-known catchlines, and it may well apply to patrons of the Strand i Theatre, who will see the famous Tommy in a comedy entitled " She Couldn't Say No," which is the second attraction., Tommy's cheerful audacity and outrage-" ous asides have won him celebrity in the air and in variety. Any comedian who has the cheek to tell his audience how lucky they are to be listening to him, not only deserves success, he demands it and gets it. This brilliant comedian is the life and soul of " She Couldn't Say No," one of those comedies where the story does not matter so much as the cast. When patrons have ceased laughing at Trinder, and that is only when he is off the screen, there is portly Fred Emney to carry on the .good' work. The box plans are at the theatre and the D.I.C.

ST. JAMES THEATRE % Featured in the current St. James Theatre programme is " Scatterbrain," an hilarious comedy. Eddie Maclntyre, breezy press agent, talent scout, and righthand man to J. R. Russell, producerdirector of Perfection Pictures, contrives the scheme to "plant" his girl friend, actress Esther Harrington, in the'Ozark Mountains, and then " discover " her for the role of " Ruthybelle " in Perfection s forthcoming production, " Thunder Ov.er the Ozarks." But the wrong girl (Judy Canova) is "discovered." The mistake is not discovered until Judy ana ' ner pappy arrive in Hollywood. She immediately becomes Perfection's public problem No. 1. Because there are no loopholes in her contract, Perfection- will- be obliged to retain her. yet if they use her in a picture her hill-billy antics will make them the laughing stock of the industry. Moreover, if they admit their errbr,. Uiey will be placed in a ridiculous position before the moviedom • press, which has widely publicised their hill-billy " find. To - make matters worse, at least from Eddie's point of view. Esther Harrington, his girl friend, is harassing him and threatening him with dire retribution If she is not given the role she was Dro-' mised when she went to the Ozarks to be " discovered." This comical situation brings a multitude of laughs. In the trackless wilderness north of the Yukon, where sparsely-populated villages lie hundreds of miles apart, a physician who travels alone in his one-seater plane is returning from an errand of mercy to a sick Eskimo child. The Flying Doctor s plane is wrecked, making a forced landing on an iceberg. Miraculously, he escapes unhurt, but is hopelessly stranded unarmed, without provisions, in wild waste of ice, rivers, and forests. This, is one of the thrilling situations in " Tundra, the associate feature. The box plans are at the theatre, D.1.C., and Jacobs MAYFAIR THEATRE Two renowned actors, Basil Rathbone and Victor McLaglen, have leading roles in " Rio," the drama of a wealthy man s banishment from Paris to Brazil wnich: is being screened at the Mayfair Theatre The glamorous Sigrid Gurie is also starred as the girl for whom Rathbone sacritices his wealth in order that she may find happiness. Will Hay is seen as one of the limbs of the law in the comedy "Ask a Policeman." Box plans are at me theatre and the D.I.C.