EMPIRE THEATRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25304, 14 August 1943, Page 6

EMPIRE THEATRE

BRIGHT COMEDY Bette Davis handles her part in " The Bride Came C.0.D.," which heads the new bill screened at the Empire Theatre yesterday, as if it were a mere rehearsal for the several important and serious roles that have been provided for her by Warner Brothers in recent times. This does not mean that she skimps her part in any way; she extracts a rich flow of comedy where a lesser actress would produce a thin trickle, and makes “ The Bride ” a comedy worth talking about. She is the spoilt daughter of a man who has suddenly made 30,000,000 dollars out of oil. His grammar and his manners have not kept pace with his cars and his mansions and his daughter’s ideas. So, when she tells him over a lcng-distance telephone that she is about to marry a Los Angeles dance band leader, he expressed himself in rare old cattle-rustling terms. James Cagney, who has lately distinguished himself by winning the Academy Award for his performance in “ Yankee Doodle Dandy,” plays a debtridden commercial pilot who is willing to fly Miss Davis back to her father safe and unmarried for—well, C.O.D. The plane is forced down near a forlorn " ghost ” town in the desert, and soon the dusty, decayed hotel rings with an assemblage such as it had not seen even in its.palmiest days. Eugene Palette is the father, and there are other names which are a guarantee of good performances. The box plans are at the theatre and the D.I.C.