AMUSEMENTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19041, 15 June 1936, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS

REGENT THEATRE

HOW "MODERN TIMES'* WAS EVOLVED In Chaplin'.-- own words, this is how the story of "Modern Times," commencing to-day at the Regent Theatre, came into being, told in an interview after a tour in which he found people in a mental chaos, bewildered by the destruc. Hon of old beliefs': "'lt seemed to me that here was material for treatment in pictures. Mut the only way to handle it for entertainment purposes w'as tc poke fun at our whole cliVzy situation, us satirise modern times, ilere wo, had gone to great lengths to attain what is called efficiency, to enable ns to produce more, and more, and now we could not dispose of what we produced. Qui: .very ability to make in vast quantity everything we needed was creating poverty. Sucl" a situation may be tragic, hut it is also absurd and ridiculous, and, as I say, it seemed natural to treat it with humour, So the. whole idea of the picture is to .show the helplessness of an, ordinary, simple-minded person in a preposterous situation he cannot understand. He doesn't ask much of life. All he is ti'vin'g to do is just to get along. Then he meets a little girl who wants nothing more, than just a decent little home to live in. The story is about what crazy' things can happen to. plain little folk who mean no harm. To symbolise modern times. 1 have in certain scenes a, great mass of machinery to get myself tangled up in. Many have the impression that the picture contains some, form of social,. oir political propaganda,, but it does nothing more than poke fun at the general confusion from which we are all suffering."

KING'S THEATRE

"SILLY BILLIES" TO-MORROW

•'King of the Damned," a GaumontBritish° picture with Conrad Vcidt, Helen Vinson and Noah liecry starred and which concerns the tropical penal settlement of Santa Marin, to-night cuds its season at the Kind's Theatre. Bert. Wheeler ami ttoberl \\ nolse\ have poked fun at about everything aim the latest to set its share of kidding ife the Western Thriller. "Silly Ihllies,; their bit of satire, includes all the thrills that commonly provide the smash climaxes of sagebrush sagas. There are vicious desperadoes and a stage coach hold-up. Peril rides tbe plains in the persons of a hundred bloodthirsty Indians. Renegade whites do their dirty work. The U.S. Cavalry rides to the rescue—-unci arrives late. The boys are destined to dance on tbe lynching rope. u> he scalped, to be burned at the stake, to perish in quicksand—in short to endure all the breathtaking thrills oi Westerns. Dorothv Lee is again romanticallv teamed with Wheeler. : liarrj Woods. Ethan Laidlaw. Delmar Watson. Dick Alexander, and Chief Thunderbn'O complete the supporting cast.

MAJESTIC THEATRE

"IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK"

An attractive comedy, "If You Could Only Cook," will commence at the Majestic to-morrow. Those, who have seen Herbert Marshall in the past would perhaps have difficulty in imagining him as a millionaire playing the part of a butler to a dubious racketeer but in doing this in "If You Could Only Cook" he gives further expression to his remarkable, versatility. As Jack Buchanan, an extremely wealthy automobile manufacturer, Marshall is about, to marry, conscious that there 'has been nothing romantic about his wooing, and that he has missed many of the things that he craved in m* youth. It is -while he is in this state of mind, following a disappointing meeting with his directors, that he discovers on a park bench and makes the acquaintance of Joan Hawthorne (Jean Arthur), whom he finds searching desperately in the "Situations Vacant, columns of the newspapers. An advertisement for a cook offers some - hope, but. unfortunately the, position is ono for a. married couple, a butler and a maid. Determined not to miss the opportunity and mistaking Buchanan for a spirit similarly in want, she induces him, on the spur of the moment to accompany her. They secure the position—a position with a former bootlegger with nn epicurean appetite. Their masquerade as a married couple leads to many amusing and complicated situations. At to-morrow's evening session, Mr. D. W. Coleman, M.P., will present prizes; to the, : winners of the cooking cotnpetitioii which lias been in progress for some weeks.

The final sriW"W? \'nh>r, place tonight or "Peter Tb'bels.m" and "Mills of the Gods."

Card enthusiasts are assured of a pleasant evening':! entertainment ill Ibe I'dne Room 10-morrow night, where the Oity Band will hold the second, game o' a series of Hag live-hundred. The first game went with a swing and from the promises received Tuesday's games should prove even heller. The committee asks intending players to be sealed at (he tables hv 8 p.m". A dainty supper will be provided.