ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 20770, 10 May 1929, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

MAJESTIC TO-NIGHT. LAST NIGHT OF CLARA BOW IN “THE PLASTIC AGE,” ALSO “THE BUTTER AND EGG MAN.” Ever been behind the scenes of a theatre on the opening night of a new play? If not, there’s a novel thrill in store for you at the Majestic Theatre where First National’s adaptation of the famous stage hit, “The Butter and Egg Man,’ will close its season to-night. Everything that can happen to worry, excite and fluster producers, actors and playwrights can be relied upon to happen on first nights. Someone gets sick. Someone has to be fired. Someone forgets his lines. The principal is mussing! The leading woman has an atuomobile accident. These are not the things which happen in “The Butter and Egg Man,” but what docs happen is packed with suspense and mirth. One of the greatest football games ever staged for a motion picture comes as the climax to “The Plastic Age,” B. P. Schulberg’s sensational novel of the younger set, which also closes its season at this theatre to-night. The entire picture is crammed with dramatic action and sparkling comedy, presenting an all-star cast, which includes Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Mary Alden, Henry B. Walthall, Gilbert Roland, David Butler, Joan Standing, J. Gordon Edwards, junr., and Felix Valle. Wesley Ruggles directed. MAJESTIC TO-MORROW. MYRNA LOY IN “THE CRIMSON CITY,” MARY BROUGH IN “A SISTER TO ASSIST-ER,” AND “THE COLLEGIANS.” One of the most brilliant Oriental pictures ever filmed is Warner Bros’ “The Crimson City,” with Myrna Loy, a Master Picture release coming to the Majestic Theatre to-morrow. Miss Loy, always enchanting in parts of this character, is cast as Nan Toy, slave in the “House of a Thousand Daggers.” There she falls in love with an outcast white man, hides him, nurses him to health only to have him taken from her by his former white sweetheart. This is but a small part of the action which makes the play so haunting. Note, “The Crimson City” is recommended by the censor more especially for adult audiences. In addition, there will be screened a British Gaumont comedy-drama entitled “A Sister to Assist-er,” which is a screamingly funny screen version of the famous music hall sketch of the same title, which has made millions rock with laughter. There will also be a further screen story of the famous "The Collegians” series. THE REGENT. VAUDEVILLE AND PICTURES TO-NIGHT. December and May romances do not always endure. "A Single Man” now playing at the Regent Theatre as a Melro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature, brings to the screen a very new idea in the mating call of youth to middle age. In this co-starring vehicle for Lew Cody and Aileen Pringle, an adaptation of a famous stage hit, the futility of pursuing fleeting youth is shown amid a hilarious setting of collegiate parties, cocktail dances and moonlight swims. As the bachelor novelist- who makes a belated quest for romance, Cody scores in a new characterization, a striking departure from his usual roles ■of sophistication. Miss Pringle, too, wins new screen triumphs as the efficient secretary whose attractiveness does not manifest itself until her employer wearies of his wild run with the flaming youths. Harry Beaumont, who directed the feature from an adaptation by F. Hugh Herbert and George O’Hara of the stage play, has given some exceptionally deft touches to the production and has sacrificed none of the charm of the whimsical love story to the comedy situations which abound. The bubbling humour that runs like a sparkling stream throughout the production has its inception in a fountain of mirth motivated by Cody and Miss Pringle in the opening scenes. It runs into swimming pools where Cody is thrown in with his clothes on by the frolicking youngsters, and floods his library, where the boys and girls “make whoopee” and use a manuscript he has been working on for years, as confetti. Marceline Day and Edward Nugent head the stellar supporting cast, which includes Kathlyn Williams, Eileen Manning and others.' The second feature, “Hold ’em Yale” featuring Jeanette Loff and Rod La Rocque, is said to be one of the best vehicles that this popular young pair has appeared in to date. A story of college life filmed against the background of the famous Yale University it is packed with action, romance and pulsing drama. Doreen Dore, a dainty singer of popular songs, will provide the vaudeville portion of the programme. This artiste needs no introduction to Invercargill audiences for before she took up the stage professionally she was a well-known performer in the local theatricals.

CIVIC PICTURES. LAST NIGHT OF RICHARD DIX IN “SPORTING GOODS,” AND WALLACE BEERY YVITH RICHARD ARLEN AND LOUISE BROOKS IN “BEGGARS OF LIFE.” It took a robust story to bring Wallace Beery back into his glory after floundering around for a season or two in comedy. Here is one of the screen’s best character actors and good comedian that he is, still after seeing him in “Beggars of Life,” no one will deny that the “heavier-than-humour” stuff is his forte. The story tells of the accidental shooting of a scoundrel by a desperate girl, who, dressed as a boy, takes to flight with the dirty young tramp, forced on his unwilling company by circumstances. Arlen does splendid work in this, the slow transition of his feeling for Nancy being perfectly expressed while in the whole of the picture there is not a bit of the usual mushy “love” stuff. So that, when the girl says she would “rather be hung than leave Jim,” and awe-struck Oklahoma Red opines that “this must be love” —something he had heard of but “aint never seen” —we are inclined to agree with him. It is much more like the real thing than the pretentious gum-kiss imitation. Beery’s return to drama is a signal success, though he does not leave all his comedy behind him. A fearsome looking villain he is, and Hollywood has evidently been combed for a gang worthy of him. In the “court” scene enacted on the freight train, Beery and Co., give an excellent representation of the socalled law-court “justice” absolutely true to life. Louise Brooks makes so admirable a boy, that she does not seem quite so real later in a girl’s clothes. Richard Dix has another enjoyable role in “Sporting Goods” in which he is seen as “Our Mr. Selby,” who has invented a new ElastoTweedo material for golf suits, and travels west with samples to put it on the market, his recommendation of it being that it is made “from sympathetic sheep under the supervision of contended collies!” He is tricked into taking up his quarters at a millionaires’ hotel in Pasadena, where the girl and her mother also lodge, and his bills mount alarmingly, considering that he has not a penny to his credit. He scratches through one desperate situation after another, playing golf with Ford Sterling and poker with Phillip Strange, and a subtler game with Claude King, and always on the edge of an expose until the grand finale. This brings on the scene all his enemies and friends in a bunch, with a marvellous unravelment of his difficulties that sends him up on the crest of the wave to financial success and triumphal love. HANALEI ENTERTAINERS. At the Victoria Hall next Saturday night theatregoers will have the opportunity of seeing, some clever entertainers. Hanalei, the magician of the party, will introduce the famous Indian Basket trick which has mystified tourists from all parts of the world. The contributing artists include comedian, dancer, guitar and ukulele players, and “Lightno,” who is proclaimed the “wonder boy” by the leading Press of New Zealand. The programme is entirely new tJ local, audiences and the company should have a successful season.