ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 20669, 15 December 1928, Page 5

ENTERTAINMENTS

MAJESTIC THEATRE. RIN-TIN-TIN IN “A RACE FOR LIFE,” ALSO GEORGE O’HARA IN “IS THIS NICE?” “A Race for Life,” a Warner Master Picture starring Rin-Tin-Tin, comes to the Majestic Theatre to-day. This is the wonder dog’s fourteenth screen triumph, and it is acclaimed as the most thrilling of the lot, which is saying a great deal. “A Race for Life” recounts the adventures of Danny O’Shea, who goes with his dog lo the Southland, via box car route, there to become a jockey for a turfman who has enemies who try to poison the horse, and succeed in imprisoning Rinty. The uncanny intelligence which the dog shows in extricating himself from all his troubles and in spurring his pal to victory provides a story which will make the house rock with cheers. Motion pictures of the newspaper game have been legion—but a new treatment of the “fourth estate” is brought out in F.8.0.’s new George O’Hara film, “Is That Nice ” which also opens at this theatre tonight. A clever and uproarious burlesque on newspapers and politics Is underlying theme of the picture, in which O’Hara as the ambitious cub reporter manages to keep in continuous hot water from beginning to end—and incidentally gives a delightful and screamingly funny interpretation of the role. CIVIC PICTURES. GLENN TRYON AND PATSY RUTH MILLER IN “HOT HEELS” AND WILLIAM RUSSELL WITH VIRGINIA VALLI IN “THE ESCAPE.” Picture-goers have come to regard the names of Glenn Tryon and Patsy Ruth Miller as synonymous with good entertainment, and this is what they provide in their latest “Hot Heels” which is to be shown at the Civic both matinee and night sessions. Human interest, thrills and comedy are mixed up in this picture, which starts out on a comedy note but finishes with a whirlwind horse-race, keeping the spectators in tense suspense. There are numerous comic absurdities in the opening scenes, where the hero is seen as an eccentric hotel-keeper, acting as his own clerk, and playing all kinds of tricks on the’members of a travelling theatrical troupe, which had come to town. The wandering dancers put on a show at the town opera house. This is a laughable burlesque of the melodramas that were popular a generation ago. Later, when the troupe goes broke, the hero agrees to finance it for a trip to Havana and goes along with the outfit. He is decoyed into this arrangement by the leading man, who fakes a telegraph message from Cuba. In the development of the plot it is shown that when the troupe arrives in Havana the hero discovers he had been fooled and thinks the heroine, with whom he was in love, had helped to frame him. The horse, Hot Heels, who performs in the show, is a thoroughbred. As a last resource, the heroine enters Hot Heels in a big race. The villain beats up Tod Sloan, the jockey, who was to have ridden Hot Heels. The hero substitutes, rides Hot Heels to victory, and wins the purse, and the girl. “The Escape” the other star feature is an entertaining drama with an underworld atmosphere, in which the human interest is strong. There is plenty of tension, and the picture has the kind of stuff that should meet with general favour. Virginia Valli is well cast as a night club hostess, George Meeker does nicely in the male lead, and William Russell is a dominating personality in the part of a bootlegger king. The story introduces Virginia Valli as the elder sister of a flapper who is inclined to pine for the bright lights. They are tenement dwellers, and despite her repeated requests to shift to a cleaner atmosphere, the father, who works with a gang of bootleggers, will not agree. She meets a young ambulance doctor, and they immediately fall in love, the young fellow informing her that he’d like to see her living in more congenial surroundings. Time sees many changes, and, with her father dead, Virginia is installed as hostess at a notorious night club, while the doctor, beaten by drink, is working in the same place making synthetic whisky. The flapper is playing with fire in the form of a notorious bootlegger. Virginia determines to save her sister and also the doctor. Her efforts led to many adventures, but at last everything is straightened and the fade-out sees the three of them happy, far removed from the scenes of former failures.