AMUSEMENTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18588, 24 December 1934, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS

KING’S THEATRE

LAST SCREENING OF “MUSIC

HALL"

English variety and radio artists appear in the musical romance, ‘ ‘ Music Hall,” which proved most popular when it was screened at the King’s Theatre on Saturday. The. final screenings take place to-night, when there will i>e sessions at 8 and 10.30 oelock. Some fine musical and dramatic entertainment is provided in the film which relates “the story of a provincial music hall." Comedy, romance and music are its chief elements.

Christmas Day: “Channel Crossing."

“Channel Crossing,” a GnumontBritish picture, will be screened at the King’s Theatre only on Christmas Day, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. The strong, dramatic story is interpreted by a carefully selected cast, headed by Matheson Lang, as a multi-millionaire financier, and Constance Cummings as his secretary. Anthony Bushel! is her lover who is responsible for tragic happenings. Edmund Gwenn enjoys a feature role as a passenger—a Lancashire man of substance paying his first visit to France. Max Miller, really an actor but making believe that he is a commercial traveller, is another leading figure in comedy scenes, cleverly interspersed with the drama. Others in the east arc Dorothy Dickson, Nigel Bruce, Douglas Jefferies, talented' artists all. 'The story is of dramatic and tragic happenings on a crossChannel run between Dover and Calais. The plot covers the failure of an international financier to overcome the consequences of an issue of false scrip and, at the same time, to face the tragedy of his rejection by the wpnian he loves, a tragedy deepened by his realisation that she loves the man whom he had nearly murdered. The picture is distinctly unusual.

Boxing Day: “Great Expectations.’’ More perhaps than any other English writer did' Charles Dickens stress the essential joyousness and good fellowship of Christmas time, and it is therefore unusually fitting that the management of the King’s Theatre should screen at the Christmas season the screen version of “Great Expectations,” one of that writer’s greatest novels. The King’s Theatre, Gisborne, has the honor of being the first in. New Zealand—in conjunction with the Regent, Christchurch, to screen “Great Expectations.” It might be thought by many, especially, ardent Dickensians, that the story could not but suffer in its transition from the printed to the spoken word, but this production is but one more proof that the screen when provided with a good story, can rise fittingly to the occasion find' produce a film which is in every way a fitting counterpart to the original. The story of “Great Expectations” is one that should never grow old. U is just as fascinating and thrilling today as it was when Dickens wrote it in his beloved house at Gadshill. The story is full of descriptions of the countryside surrounding his home, oi the Kentish lanes he loved so well; but it is also vivid, with scenes of the London of his day. Henry Hjill 1* starred as Magwifch, with I lumps Holmes, Jane Wyatt, Florence Reed, Alan Hale, Francis L. Sullivan, George •Breakstone, Haefnela Ottiano and Valerie Hobson. “Great Expectations,-” will bo screened on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.