THE EMPIRE, RIVERTON.

Southland Times, Issue 22203, 21 December 1933, Page 12

THE EMPIRE, RIVERTON.

Now Showing: “Hold Me Tight” (Sally Eilers, James Dunn). Coming: “Good Night Vienna” (Anna Neagle, Jack Buchanan); “No. 17” • (Anne Grey, Donald Calthorp, John Stuart); “Fast Life” (William Haines, Madge Evans, Conrad Nagel, Cliff Edwards); “The Warrior’s Husband” (Elissa Landi, Marjorie Rambeau, Ernest Truex, David Manners, Helene Madison); “It’s Great to be Alive” (Herbert Mundin, Gloria Stuart, Raul Roulien, Edna May Oliver, Joan Marsh); “Fra Diavolo” (Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Denis King, Thelma Todd).

“Double Harness” is a personal triumph for Ann Harding and William Powell, says the Sydney Sun. The teaming of these accomplished and restrained players is a fine success; their work together is deft and sensitive. Ann brings a touch of audacity, deliciously frank, to her part of pursuer; no other star could have carried off such a part. There are, however, other players in “Double Harness” and of these Lucille Brown is outstanding. She is really abominably clever as Ann’s spoilt, petulant, younger sister. As its climax, “Double Harness” has the kind of dinner-party which will make every woman in the audience shiver in sympathy. But since Ann and Powell are both charming people, it has a happy ending. The mounting of “Double Harness’ ’is particularly well done.

“I’m just a country hick living on a farm,” Sinclair Lewis is said to have once declared, “and every time I leave it I get into trouble.” The celebrated author, whose latest novel, “Ann Vickers,” has been brought to the screen by RKO Radio Pictures with Irene Dunne in the title role, might have added that every time he writes a book he stirs up a hornet’s nest of controversy. That habit of creating discussion started with Lewis’ first best seller, “Main Street.” It has continued through all of his subsequent fiction hits, and has given rise to the tradition that if it’s a Lewis book it is worth reading and arguing about. Those who know their literature values say the reason for this is the fact that Lewis always has something vital to say. He never wastes time by writing about trivialities, and while readers may not agree with his ideas, they are certain to find them worth thinking about. A red-headed individual, with tremendous nervous energy, Lewis never has been one to pattern his thinking on that of others. As an undergraduate at Yale University, he was far from being a brilliant student, but he was distinguished for his original ideas and his forceful manner of expressing them. As newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and famous novelist, he has always been a stormy petrel, an individual who would say what he thought and stick by his guns. With “Ann Vickers” Lewis has given the world more ammunition for heated discussion and serious thinking. Not only does the story deal fearlessly with the problems of a modern-minded girl, who is brave enough to defy conventions in combining romance with a career but it offers some startling exposures of prison brutalities, and touches upon the timely theme of political corruption. In bringing this sensational best seller to the screen, RKO Radio has surrounded Miss Dunne with an exceptionally brilliant supporting cast. The leading male role, that of a supreme court judge, who becomes involved in bribery charges while figuring romantically in Ann Vicker’s life, is played by Walter Huston. Other men who make love to the heroine with interesting results are played by Conrad Nagel and Bruce Cabot. The angular and laugh provoking Edna May Oliver has a strong supporting role. Kitty Kelly, Robert Benchley and other well-known players are also included in the cast directed by John Cromwell,