ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 22159, 30 October 1933, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

. CIVIC THEATRE. “THE POWER OF EVIL” AND “MUSSOLINI SPEAKS.” The double feature programme, “The Power of Evil” and “Mussolini Speaks, will be shown for the last time to-night at the Civic Theatre as the theatre is engaged to-morrow night. Constance Cummings, who plays the heroine of Columbia’s film, “The Power of Evil, has had one of the most successful years of any actress in Hollywood. This is her third big picture this year—the others being “Gold Fever,” the banking melodrama with Walter Huston and “Movie Crazy,” with Harold Lloyd. ( Miss Cummings’ characterization in “The Power of Evil” is one that becomes her sweetly serious character. She appears as the grand-daughter of a United States Senator, a girl who knows all the ins and outs of political and social life, and who voluntarily works as the secretary and practical adviser of a patriotic and intelligent, but comparatively inexperienced young Congressman, who comes to Washington to do big things. “The Power of Evil” is a picture that dares to blast the ha off the national capitol. Ruthless, frank, fearlessly honest. You’ll thrill to the patriotic young man’s single-handed fight against gang politics and gang politicians. Here’s a story with the explosive force of a bombshell. It pulls no punches, shows no favour. And through it all weaves the delightfully natural romance of a young political tartar. Lee Tracy and Constance. Cummings are featured in the principal roles in the production, directed by James Cruze. Alan Dinehart, Walter Connolly and Arthur Hoyt head the strong supporting cast. When the legions of ancient Rome swept over the plains of Italy they left behind them roads which endure even to-day. As soon as Benito Mussolini, whose life is the inspiration for Columbia s Mussolini Speaks,” showing at the Civic Theatre, became Premier, he set out to emulate the ancient Romans in road building. One of his chief delights is inaugurating newly constructed highways “Mussolini Speaks” is the romantic life story of Benito Mussolini, today’s giant of history. He is unearthing the glory that was the old Roman Empire. One of his latest exploits is the draining of Lake Nemi in order to recover the state galleys of the Roman Empire, Caligula, sunk there. Besides being a complete revelation of Benito Mussolini from the time when he walked the streets of Dovia, his birthplace, until he marched on Rome to grasp the reins of government in his capable hands, “Mussolini Speaks is a thrilling drama of the Italian people. All of Italy is in the moving picture. A film with 700,000 extras ... an assemblage of the world’s most prominent personalities. Here is a picture of epic magnitude!

THE MAJESTIC. “THE BIG CAGE.” AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHY IN CIRCUS DRAMA. Those who are rather weary of seeing human emotions, human suffering and human strife depicted on the screen will welcome “The Big Cage which made its first appearance at the Majestic on Saturday evening before an audience which filled every seat downstairs and all but a score upstairs. In this amazing film the lords of the jungle are seen being subjugated by the will-power of an intrepid man. It is not a “fake” picture. It throws a searchlight on all that goes on in a huge circus. When a first-class circus comes to Invercargill people are prepared to pay big money to see a few lions, tigers and elephants perform. But the circus around which the story of “The Big Cage” centres is a stupendous affair, ten times the size of anything seen in this part of the world. For the modest Majestic prices patrons can see acts which they have never dreamed possible. They will see twenty tigers landed from a liner, taken into the winter quarters of Whipple’s circus and trained by the matchless Clyde Beatty, who with nothing more than a kitchen chair and a few blank cartridges makes them bow to his will. They will see twenty lions landed direct from their African home, come snarling into the arena where Beatty, still with his chair, stands with a smile to greet them. But the real thrills begin when he attempts a feat which has never been regarded as possible—the working of lions and tigers together. There is a nerve-tingling scene in which a great cat tackles the king of beasts. No battle royal has ever been so fierce and so swift as this genuine death struggle between the giant beasts in the big cage of the circus. It is a marvellous piece of photography, as indeed are many other remarkable scenes in the film. Despite injury from a lion and deadly menace from tigers Clyde Beatty perseveres with his unique act until at the conclusion he is seen in the ring with twenty tigers and twenty lions, century-old enemies, seated alongside each other, though ready at any sign of weakening in that human will to let loose the full venom of their hate. The commingling of these beasts has been accomplished by no other trainer in the world and it says a great deal for the enterprise of motion picture producers that they realized how effectively with the aid of the sound-apparatus could the amazing act be shown in every land in the world. There is, of course, a highly interesting story running through the film, with romance, pathos and humour skilfully blended. The acting of Anita Page, Wallace Ford, Raymond Hatton, Mickey Rooney and Andy Devine is most finished. Clyde Beatty does not need to act. All he does is part of his day’s work, but he has such a sunny personality and such modesty that he wins his audience at the outset. Anita Page is seen in some dazzling trapeze work at the top of the tent, giving further proof of the versatility of the modern actress. In the matter of supports the management has been extremely generous. Newsreels are alway popular and no fewer than four were shown on Saturday evening. Probably that which proved most interesting was a Pathe featuring the recent All-England tennis championships at Wimbledon, the Ryder Cup golf competition, a speedway test between English and Australian motor cyclists and many other prominent sporting events throughout the world. There is also a clever comedy with Jimmy Gleeson as the chief purveyor of humour and a Mickey Mouse Cartoon with a boxing bout as the star item.

THE REGENT. “CAVALCADE.” A TOAST TO ENGLAND. Yes, that’s what “Cavalcade”—here at last!—really is—a “Toast to England,” and every man, woman and child in the packed audience at the Regent on Saturday night, heart and soul joined with Jane and Robert Marryot, the two main characters in this triumph of the cinema, in their drinking, with brave hopefulness, to the New Year and to the Motherland. In about 90 per cent, of instances these _ longheralded and strongly-boosted pictures over which film reviewers wax so enthusiastic are,, to twist Tom Moore to meet the occasion, “Like Dead Sea fruit that tempts the lips, , „ But turns the ashes in the eye.

I Not so “Cavalcade.” It not only fills the most sanguine expectations, but laps over the edges as well and this Times’ critic must dip deep into the storehouse of English superlatives to help the pen do full justice to ‘ this highly imaginative play of history and emotion. But it is hardly a play, hardly an epic either, but rather a pageant of British history from 30 years ago until to-day. It opens with a time when England was at the summit of her greatness, convinced of her rectitude and stability and untroubled by fears and uncertainties. It ends in the present day—after telling a story of disillusionment and . tragedy—with much of that certainty and confidence gone. That, at any rate, is Noel Coward’s interpretation of the period in his chronicle of the annals of the Motherland for his play is the only patriotic one in existence ending on a note of doubt and wistful bewilderment. After tracing the history of the Marryots from the Boer War through the late world slaughter and its appalling aftermath down to the uncertain present, it ends not on any cry of exultation, but on the eloquent toast that “this England which we love so much will some day find dignity, greatness and peace again.” Through its celebration of imperial glories and Its nostalgic backward glances towards conquest and greatness there emerges the poignant recognition that imperial glory resulted in more tears than patriotic celebrations. Brilliant and moving either as historical panorama or as the inspiring tale of a gallant family in happiness and sorrow, it is in great part a spectacular paean to the spirit of an Empire, but it is written in some of its scenes—particularly in the episode wherein the son of the family and his young wife sail on their honeymoon on the ill-fated Titanic—with the author’s finest eloquence. Throughout the screening of the film the emotions of the audience cannot but be whipped, the imaginations fired, by this hymn to what is best in a national spirit. The high lights glare time and time again—they are so many. The most affecting scenes are those enacted to the accompaniment of popular airs. Nothing, it seems, can recall the past to the individual more poignantly than the sound of music with which past events have become closely associated. The British nation has its store of musical memories and Noel Coward has dipped and taken a series of tunes, banal in themselves, which, for the English people, have become curiously charged with emotion. And it is the occurrence and recurrence of these times throughout the film that go so far towards knitting so effectively the scenes of the story. Thus the opening is dominated by the old military march “Soldiers of the Queen.” It is 1899. The heads of the two families whose history is to be traced enlist in the volunteer force—a citizen army then new to England, but which was to prove the forerunner to the great armies of a generation later. The two soldiers are Robert Marryot (Clive Brook) and his butler (Herbert Mundin). Then comes the wild celebration in London of the relief of Mafeking—a foretaste of a later and wilder night of rejoicing. Then the death of Queen Victoria, which seemed even at the time to mark the closing of an era. No episode adds more to the achievement of the film in acting in pace, in imagination of staging and in its flow of narrative, than the sight of the family watching sadly the funeral procession—it is an outstanding piece of work. To bridge the gap between the Boer War and the World War, Coward has chosen the sinking of the Titanic, which robs Mrs Marryot of one of her sons as the Great War is to rob her of another. The means by which the Titanic disaster has been told is another brilliant effort of suggestion. Then comes the Great War and the strains of “Soldiers of the Queen” are replaced by those of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” and so on. The swiftlymoving scenes with which the atmosphere of the war and the years that followed have been re-created are masterly fragments of film direction. The painstaking manner in which the background of this widely-flung drama has been painted in, too, is most praiseworthy. There are several of those glimpses which Coward so loves to give his audiences of the stage and cabaret entertainers of past generations; there is a team of minstrels singing “I do like to be beside the seaside” at Brighton in 1909; the oddities of fashion. The large cast has been chosen and handled with similar care. The most exacting part of Mrs Marryot is taken most effectively by Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook is really admirable, while Herbert Mundin, in turn a butler, a soldier and an innkeeper, reveals an unexpected gift for serious dramatic work. The two boys who represent the Marryot children when young are likewise excellent. “Cavalcade is fully worthy of the success it is everywhere achieving; it is its own publicity agent. The supporting programme is, too, an outstanding one.