ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 22187, 1 December 1933, Page 5

ENTERTAINMENTS

THE REGENT. “THE WOMAN ACCUSED.” NANCY CARROLL, CARY GRANT, JOHN HALLIDAY. Not only did they combine to write the picture, but ten of America’s bestknown authors make brief movie debuts in “The Woman Accused,” Paramount’s all-star story, which opened at the Regent Theatre last night, with Cai-y Grant, Nancy Carroll and John Halliday in leading roles. All the authors appear briefly at the opening of the picture, giving movie audiences their first chance to see men and women with whose efforts they are familiar. The action of the film centres around Miss Carroll, who, on the eve of her wedding to Grant, is confronted by a former lover, who demands that she return to him. When she refuses flatly, and tries to explain that they are finished, he picks up the telephone, calls a gangster friend, and asks him to kill Grant. Before he can mention the latters name, however, Miss Carroll strikes him with a bronze figurine. Then, to her horror, she discovers she has killed him. Hysterical, she flees with Grant aboard a steamship bound for a week-end pleasure cruise. Halliday, a friend of the victim, follows, attempting to get evidence incriminating her. But Grant, in a dramatic climax, clears her of all guilt and carries her off to safety. The supporting programme includes a Paramount British News with his Majesty the King opening England’s largest dock and other news of interest; a Mack Sennett comedy; song cartoon “Aloha Oe” featuring the Royal Samoans and a Sports-Eye-View by Grantland Rice. This programme will be repeated again to-day, matinee and night. “DIGGERS IN BLIGHTY.” FUN WITH THE ANZACS. THE REGENT TO-MORROW. Considerable interest is being evidenced in the opening screenings of Pat Hanna’s “Diggers in Blighty,” which is due for presentation at the Regent Theatre to-morrow afternoon and evening. Entirely an Australian production this picture has a distinct appeal to New Zealanders, particularly those who saw service for there is so much of it that came within their own ken. It is comedy from first to last with a background of Secret Service and a slender thread of romance running through. “Diggers in Blighty” is a Pat Hanna production, and he appears as Chic Williams, an Australian private. His friends are Lance-Cor-poral McTavish (Joe Valli) and Private Joe Mulga (George Moon). The three, although they have a reputation for gallantry in the field, get up to much trouble behind the lines, and a good deal of fun is provided with the proverbial wartime sergeants-major. Their commanding officer is Captain Jack Fisher (John D’Arcy), and the love interest of the film is sustained by him and the nurse at the hospital (Iza Crossley). In the opening portions of the picture there is considerable drama, dealing with the work of the Secret Service, and Norman French stars in this. Thelma Scott is cast as his secretary. The real highlights of the picture, however, are when the three fiiends are sent to “Blighty,” and they are incongruously out of place in the home of a wealthy spinster. The picture ends happily and merrily. The supporting programme includes “Oh! What a Night!” a hilarious comedy featuring George Wallace, the popular Australian comedian. CIVIC THEATRE. LAST DAY OF “THREE ON A MATCH.” It is a gala event in the entertainment world when four stars of the calibre of Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ann Dvorak and Bette Davis can be seen in one picture, as is the case with “Three On a Match,” the First National production which opened a two days’ engagement at the Civic Theatre last night. The story is distinctly off the beaten track: you may see a score of motion pictures and not encounter one that remotely suggests “Three on a Match.” Developed with dramatic vigour and picturesque sidelights, the picture tells the story of three girls who started as classmates in the same public school and follows them through the varying events of their lives for ten years, as their paths cross and re-cross. Consider it as a studv in the comparative power of heredity and environment, Ann Dvorak’s delineation of Vivian Revere, the school beauty, daughter of well-to-do and cultured parents, seems to demonstrate that there is as much to be said for inborn tendencies as for acquired modes of behaviour. Joan

Bondell, as Mary Keaton, the truant and terror of the public school, whose only alma mater in the realm of higher education was the State Reformatory, and who, nevertheless, wins on merit the distinguished attorney her school chum, Vivian, had cast disdainfully aside, and marries him—hard-boiled, smart-cracking Mary holds her environment at arm’s length with the utmost ease. Together with Bette Davis —in the role of the class caledictorian and honour pupil, who spends her life being a conscientious, hard-working secretary—the three girls are as vivid and interestifig characters, strictly in the modern vein, as the motion picture screen has offered for many a long day. Underlying the whole drama, is the human note of dissatisfaction on the part of each girl with hei- own position, that gives the story an added sense of reality. Vivian would gladly barter her life of luxury and wealth for the bohemian freedom of Mary Keaton’s existence; Mary thinks nothing would be more perfect than a doting husband, a town car and an open bank account, such as Vivian has. And Ruth, the stenographer, impartially envies both of them. What happens to the lives of all three when Vivian’s restlessness leads her to abandon both her husband and her home in an effort to find the freedom she longs for, constitutes the main burden of the picture. As the attorney who finally finds in Mary Keaton the qualities he had loved Vivian Revere for, Warren William gives his best performance. Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak and Bette Davis are perfectly cast as the three girls. “THE MATCH KING” TO-MORROW. “The Match King” is the story of a man whose power and ambition raised him from a Chicago street-sweeper to a financial power atop a pyramid of credit, built on the ruins of other lives. It is the tale of a financial Juggernaut which once started could not be stopped until it brought the financial world crashing down about its creator’s ears. It is the story of a man who was as ruthless in love as in finance but who learned, to his sorrow, that a reckoning was inevitable in either. Here is a picture of epic proportions, told against a setting of lavish elegance. Here is realistic super-drama of the modern age which races in breathless suspense from one great city to another, from one European throne room to the next. Contrasting with the crushing, dominating power of its principal theme is the development of a tender love story which threads its way through the whole of the powerful drama. “The Match King” is perhaps the most important picture of the present season. The story of the rise and fall of Paul Kroll, the man who dealt in billions and whose word swayed national decisions, holds the fascination of being so near to the truth that it hurts. Lili Damita, Glenda Farrell, Juliette Compton, and Claire Dodd all share in the wearing of gorgeous gowns created for this picture. Hardie Albright, Harold Huber, Spencer Charters and numerous others in the long roster of excellent players who appear in “The Match King” were all selected for their roles with particular care. Howard Bretherton directed with William Keighley as dialogue assistant.

THE MAJESTIC. “A NIGHT IN CAIRO.” Ramon Novarro, as a charming rascal who stops short at hardly anything to get what he wants, is one of the reasons why “A Night in Cairo,” which is now showing at the Majestic, provides such excellent entertainment, but there are others why this film I should attract large audiences during its screening here. The story in parI ticular is of that pleasant type which depicts the sheik of the desert as a gallant gentleman, and nobody is better fitted, either by appearance or personality, to wear the mantle of Rudolph Valentino than Ramon Novarro. He looks the part, and, even more important, he knows how to act it. He is seen first as an Egyptian dragoman, using all the wiles of his class to gain "baksheesh” and the favours of the tourists; and when he sees a beautiful girl who has come to Egypt to marry a “stick” of an Englishman, he has no scruples about stealing her lapdog so that he may subsequently return it and thus gain the position of her guide during her stay in the Land of the Pharaohs. Thereafter he most ingeniously and. charmingly insinuates himself on her notice, popping up all over the place to keep her separated from her fiance, and acting as the perfect guide on moonlight excursions into the desert. All of which is part of his little plan of winning the girl for himself. In Cairo this young rapscallion, Jamil, is merely a dragoman, albeit a most superior and rather too attentive one; but once he has the heroine to himself out in the desert he throws off this pose and becomes an Arab prince. Thereafter he behaves according to the way of traditional sheiks, carrying off the maiden under the eyes of his rival, outwitting and outfighting all his enemies. The girl, however, scorns his proposals of honourable marriage, and returns to Cairo to set the soldiers on his heels, and prepare to marry her Englishman, as personified by that wellknown actor, Reginald Denny. The wedding march is already playing when Jamil risks capture and death to climb the heroine’s balcony, sing her a love song, and express his devotion to her, so that eventually the girl confesses her love and escapes with him. So the climax is surprising, but satisfactory. “A Night in Cairo” has almost as many moments of comedy as it has of romance, these being supplied by Novarro’s gay and whimsical rascality’ and the good-natured protestations of Louise Closser Hale, who, as the heroine’s companion, finds pyramid-climb-ing and camel-riding almost equally uncomfortable pastimes, but who does not scruple to trip up an Egyptian colonel when she thinks he stands in the way of her mistress’s true happiness with her Jamil. The supporting programme is up to the usual Majestic standard. THE GREATEST YET. ‘‘KING KONG.” MAJESTIC THEATRE, SATURDAY. There is something new under the sun, and Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, with their production of “King Kong,” have provided it! The producers of “Grass” and “Chang” have soared grandly into the realms of imagination for the super-fantasy, “King Kong,” the RKO-Radio Picture featuring Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong

and Bruce Cabot coming to the Majestic Theatre on Saturday. With the late Edgar Wallace, Cooper received the extravagantly fantastic idea of bringing the prehistoric age into juxtaposition with the modern age. First an expedition to a jungle island discovers surviving members of the Jurassic Age —the pterodactyl, trachodon, tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops and others—ruled over by a giant ape standing more than fifty feet high. Then the ape is transported to civilization—to New York. Breaking loose, he tears through the streets where people, automobiles, street cars, elevated lines are like so many tin toys beneath one’s feet—where even the tallest building in the world is no more difficult to climb than a tree! The great “King Kong’’ even reaches into the sky and provides a new menace for airmen. A snatch at a plane pumping machine gun bullets into his tough hide, and it is doomed. “King Kong” is a terror —the mightiest terrorman, either in or out of fiction and of the movies, ever attempted to capture and subdue! There is romance, too, in “King Kong.” Bruce Cabot, in love with Fay Wray, finds the monster is his rival. It’s a new angle on the Beauty and the Beast theme. The fragile, golden-Haired heroine is the first in millions of years to touch a soft, tenderspot in the heart of this Beast, and for her he kills giant terrors and wreaks havoc with mankind and its inventions. But his blundering idea of protection of course terrorizes the girl, and thrills the audience as well. Extravagant with its surprises and action, “King Kong” sweeps one into a new realm of entertainment and leaves one with something to wonder at and tclk about. A special supportng featurette on the programme will be “So this is Harris,” a bright musical comedy. “King Kong“ will be shown at both the afternoon and evening sessions on Saturday.

GORE REGENT THEATRE. Another attractive double bill 18 booked for the week-end programme at the Gore Regent Theatre. Henry Kendall and Dorothy Boyd are the top liners in “The Iron Stair,” a gripping drama of mistaken identity. TTie film is remarkable for the fact that Henry Kendall plays dual roles and carries off striking honours in a drama of circumstantial evidence and its aftermath. Also on the programme is “Crossfire” with Tom Keene in a typically vigorous role.