AMUSEMENTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18308, 29 January 1934, Page 5

AMUSEMENTS

REGENT THEATRE “A BEDTIME STORY” After viewing “A Bedtime Story,’ Paramount’s delightful musical romance that opened at tiie Regent Theatre on Saturday, one is bound to come to the conclusion that there is, and always will be, only one Maurice Chevalier, lie is unique.' lie is personality itself. Maurice Chevalier took the world by storm when lie made his first talking picture, “The Innocents of Paris.” Now he is seen at his very best in “A Bedtime Story,” and he has .not- lost one grain of his magnetic personality. In all his films he always has the support of one, and sometimes two, beautiful women, and in this new venture, Helen Twelvetrees, blonde and fascinating, and Adrienne Ames, brunette and equally fascinating, vie with each other ami several other beautiful women, for honors. However, it, is not the French star, or his leading woman, or Edward Everett. Horton, the popular comedian, who really run off with all the honors. It. is Baby Leroy, the most, fascinating, cuddlesome morsel of eight months one could see or liear, who steals the show. Baby Leroy is a chubby little mite who gurgles his way through the film entirely oblivious of the fact that he is being photographed for all the world t,o see. The story concerns a. gay French Vieomto, who finds a baby left in bis car. His subsequent adventures and the resulting! complications make one of Iho best films of the year. The star sings several very tuneful numbers in the show. The specially selected supporting bill is one of the best ever screened at this theatre. MAJESTIC THEATRE TWO BIG PICTURES A fine drama of a great love between two men, of a wife’s faithlessness, and a friend’s betrayal, is told in “The Wrecker, which concludes to-night, against a background of noisy drills, crashing walls, and tumbling masonry. It is one of the most hurpan stories ever transferred to the screen, simple in its treatment, yet full of romance and adventure. Jack Holt has an ideal role as “Chuck” Regan, a wrecker of buildings,' whose business grows to amazing proportions and whose love for liis wife and small son is as great as the heart of the uncultured gentleman ho portrays. Regan’s affection for Sam Shapiro, a junk collector, is a great influence in the lives of both, and when the husband returns from a hurried business visit to find his wife and former partner have betrayed his trust in both, it is the little junk merchant who follows him and rehabilitates him to sanity and hope, after he has fallen on evil days. His exwife has married her lover and the latter has made a name for himself as a builder, but Regan’s ex'pert knowledge finds flaws in the construction and his suspicion of the infirmity of new buildings is proved when an earthquake occurs and the new school crumbles like sand. Trapped in the new building, the husband and wife are at the mercy of “Chuck,” but Shapiro again is the good fairy. Another shake occurs and makes rescue hopeless; leaving the wrecker to build a new lifo with his small son.

The second long feature is “Chandu the Magician,” starring Edmund Lowe and Bela Lugosi. It is a thrilling tale in which magic, mystery, adventure and comedy are entertainingly blended. To-morrow an old favorite will be screened, “Hell’s Angels,” which in the greatest aviation picture over made, stars Jean Harlow, Ben Lyon, and James Hall.

KING’S THEATRE “CAVALCADE” ON FRIDAY i “Cavalcade,” which will be presented at the opening of King’s Theatre on Friday, appeals to pretty nearly every emotion to which the human heart is susceptible. That is the principal reason why it was selected by Fox Filins for production ns the most ambitious film ever attempted by Hollywood. Costing more than £200,000,* portraying scenes in which a? many as 25C0 “extras” were employed, utilising specially built “sets” o’f London localities costing approximately £BO,OOO with an imported cast, of characters and an attention to details and authenticity never before attempted in motion pictures, “Cavalcade” is tho most pretentious production «\;er undertaken anywhere. “Cavalcade,” by Noel Coward, author of “Bitter Sweet” and a dozen other successes, produced by , Charles B. Cochran, was the hit of the year in London. It is the story of a home; a family. It tells of a mother’s protective instincts frustrated by the chauvinistic policies of governments, which lead to wav and then fatten on the patriotism and adventurous spirits of the youth of tho nation. Noel Coward has contrived to focus these emotions and their inevitable developments over a generation, more than three decades, squarely on to tho hearthstone of a singlo family in London. Gisborne pic-ture-goers will have their first opportunity of witnessing “Cavalcade” (.on Friday, and not only that but they will also be privileged to view this epic of the screen in the handsome, new King s Theatre, in which the installation of Western-Electric “wide-range” equipment make the theatre one of the most advanced in the Dominion.