ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 22295, 10 April 1934, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

THE REGENT. “HAWLEYS OF HIGH STREET.” BUILT FOR LAUGHS AND GETS THEM! Riotous comedy is provided in “Tlie Hawleys of High Street” which, with Leslie Fuller, the talented British comedian, at the head of the cast, must close its short but merry season at the Regent with the final screening tonight. As on Saturday, last night’s audience did not restrain itself by just tittering or emitting quiet chuckles, but entered completely into the spirit of the comedy, and laughed loud and long. Leslie Fuller as Bill Hawley, a smalltown draper, sells his business in a very surprising manner and prepares to settle down to a life of leisure and fretwork, but his managing wife (Amy Veness, the “battle-cruiser” mother-in-law of “My Wife’s Family”) has other plans. She embarks on a campaign of social climbing, and forces poor Bill to stand for the town council to spite Busworth, the local pork butchei’ (Moore Morrison). The resultant passages-at-arms between these two loons provide great opportunities for clowning. A meeting at which they speak breaks up in some little disorder owing to a very rickety platform, but not before Hawley has offended all the prominent citizens on the dais, and in a fracas that follows Bill collects an unattached viscount for his pretty daughter. Tire intrigues of Busworth, who declares the viscount an impostor, shatter the romance for a time, and true love does not triumph until Busworth’s perfidy is exposed in one of the most laughable court scenes yet shown here. That great favourite with local audiences, Jimmy Godden, is on the bench as the mayor of the town, and draws laughs with every word and gesture. Hawley interviews Busworth in his shop, paying off a few old scores in a titantic battle in which pieces of prime lamb are used with dreadful effect. When the war is over Busworth hangs from a hook among his stock-in-trade, priced with a lemon in his mouth, all ready to be cut up and sold. Old Bill, who has by now shed his inferiority complex, goes home and informs his wife that he is from now on the boss at the house, the film ending on a note of comedy as unexpected as it is genuine. Outstanding among the excellent supporting films is a New Zealand production dealing among other things with the fiord region, Milford and the now famous Eglinton Valley—the beauty spot at our back door, which will become more widely known with the universal screening of this fine film. MARY PICKFORD RETURNS. OTHER OLD FAVOURITES. “SECRETS” AT THE REGENT. Surrounded by one of the largest casts in her long career and directed by Frank Borzage, Mary Pickford comes to the Regent for a short season tomorrow in “Secrets,’ an adaptation of the celebrated stage play by Rudolf Beiser and May Edginton. And thus, according to all advance reports, motion pictur fans will see the star in one of the best pictures she has made. “Secrets” gives Miss Pickford what she believes is an ideal vehicle. In the first place, it is “motion picture” from beginning to end, and in the second place the story is a simple one of love and elemental emotions, with no wisecracking and no sophistication. It is Miss Pickford’s sincere belief that simple tales, simply told, will be the salvation of the screen, just as they are bound to be in literature. Months of preparatory work went into the picturization of “Secrets.” In every branch. Miss Pickford spared no expense and time in procuring the best material and the best personnel, as will be borne out by a glance at the production staff and the cast of players. Both before and behind the camera were “names” known throughout the world. In the latter category were Frances Marion, scenarist, and Frank Borzage, director, who recently were awarded their second trophies by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, thus joining the very small aiTny of twotime winners in Hollywood. In front of the cameras was an all-star cast in every sense of the word. Leslie Howard, English star, was Miss Pickford's leading man, and Mona Maris is the “other woman.” Then there are C. Aubrey Smith, Blanche Frederici, Doris Lloyd, Herbert Evans, Ned Sparks and Jerry Stewart. But in addition to these Miss Pickford surrounded herself with several stars of another day, actors and actresses who used to count their salaries in thousands of dollars weekly. These included Bessie Barriscale, Ethel Clayton, King Bagoit, Florence Lawrence, Francis Ford, Theodore von Eltz, Huntley Gordon and Paul Penzer, among others. The story . of “Secrets” is in three sections, showing Miss Pickford as a young girl, as a young woman and as a middle-aged woman. Its locales are Salem, M;fss, the Middle West and Calfornia, with a finale locale in Washington, D.C. From beginning to end there is breath-taking action, and that, after ail, is the prime requisite of a motion picture. CIVIC THEATRES LAST NIGHT OF “F.P.1.” “F.P.1.,” the title of the GaumontBritish picture released by Fox Films finishing its season at the Civic Theatre to-night, refers to Floating Platform No. 1, an island of steel in mid-ocean as a half-way stopping and refuelling base for transatlantic flights. The name given to the picture—that of “F.P.I.”— conveys immediately an impression of the latent power in the picture. The name sounds big, and surely no picture ever deserved that description more than does “F.P.1.,” which will take its place among the epics of the screen’s history. Floating Platform No. 1 is a gigantic structure anchored in mid-Atlantic to act as an ocean landing station for aircraft. The ingenious and far-from-impossible idea is demonstrated in a picture that is vivid and inspiring. Considering that a platform formed like a ship cannot be kept sufficiently steady on a heavy sea, the designer - divided “F.P.l’s.” hull into a number of unsinkable parts, cylinders that are to give the necessary buoyancy to tbe deck or platform. Reaching into the water for almost 120 feet, they have about the double height of a four-storey building. This height has been given them because the motion of the water in the ocean extends to a depth of only 60 feet below the surface. As the cylinders go down 60 feet lower, and therefore are practically floating in quiet waters, the platform carried by them is not exposed to pitching and tossing. Human things living on it will not have the feeling of being on an artificial construction. According to the project the platform carried by the gigantic cylinders measures about 1500 ft in length and 450 feet in width. On this vast plain a smooth landing can be effected by aeroplanes of the largest dimensions. “F.P.1.” is neither a technical nor an interest film as those terms are understood, but a dramatic peep into the future. We see the building of the platform, a gigantic engineering feat in a vast dockyard; we see it complete in mid-Atlantic; a dastardly attempt to sink it, and the wonderful efforts made to save the mighty work from being sunk. The by-play of emotions, romantic and villainous punctuates the story as the inventor’s imaginings become reality. The picture is crowded with thrills, the rescue flight to save the doomed platform be- ,

ing one of the most dramatic aviation spectacles ever screened. Here is certainly a picture for ail ages. Wellknown artists play important roles in this fascinating picture, including Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond, Leslie Fenton, Donald Calthrop and George Merrit. “THE GHOUL” TO-MORROW. The ingenious Gaumont-British thriller, “The Ghoul,” released by Fox Films, envisages the story of a halfcrazed Egyptologist who “returns to life” in search of a jewel stolen from his hand after his supposed death, which was really only a fit of coma. Terrible happenings follow his emergence from the tomb and the whole atmosphere is one of impending doom from some mysterious source. Implacable hate seems to breathe in every shadowy scene; and the cold, gruesome fanatic round whom the -whole action centres is, in very truth, a ghoul. That Boris Karloff plays the character is sufficient indication of its excellent portrayal. It is in the best “Frankenstein” tradition, which he created for the screen. A strong cast supports him, including Cedric Hardwicke, Dorothy Hyson, Ernest Thesiger and Anthony Bushell. Pictures made frankly to chill the blood are not expected to bear much analysis; but “The Ghoul” is one that will swing the balance of close criticism strongly in its favour. The creepy atmosphere is ably maintained; the hot moments recur almost to the last fade-out; and the theme has a basis of high probability. The picture is coming to the Civic Theatre to-morrow. THE MAJESTIC. RUTH CHATTERTON IN “FEMALE.” THE FAVOURITE SCORES AGAIN. There is only one Ruth Chatterton, whose undoubted histrionic ability has won her well-merited popularity the world over. Always sure of her public, she again scores heavily in “Female,” a striking film which once more drew a large audience to the Majestic Theatre last night. As the head of a big business, she beats men at their own game—that is until she meets her match. Instead of having men play hetin an effort to win her affections, she plays the men. In her latest picture Ruth Chatterton has departed with a vengeance from all other film characters with which she has been associated in the past. This time she is Alison Drake, smart, aggressive, attractive, head of Drake Motors, Inc., who cannot understand why a woman in a dominant position cannot command men, as the great conquerors of the world have always commanded women. Why cannot women’s attitude be one of casual condescension? She wishes to take men as she finds them—to discard them just as casually as men discard their women when they have tired of them. In other words—“love ’em and leave ’em”—in the old masculine way. But at last this aggressive, self-confident young woman meets defeat. Despite her power to do whatever she pleases with her life, she finds she is not as self-sufficient as she has believed. There is at least one man who does not surrender at her word—one man to whom she is not even acceptable. That man happens to be the only one she really wants for keeps. Alison Drake’s elaborate home; then on to street carnivals, dance halls and even a shooting gallery in a far different quarter of the city. George Brent, Miss Chatterton’s husband, contributes an expert performance as leading man in a role that offers him frequent opportunities for dry comedy. There is a distinguished supporting cast, composed largely of players well known both on stage and screen. Among those with important roles who loyally support Ruth Chatterton may be mentioned Ruth Donnelly, Lois Wilson, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Jean Muir, and Phillip Reed. The supporting programme, an excellent combination of “shorts,” includes newsreels, a clever cartoon and a bright comedy. PICTURE THAT WILL PLEASE. KATHLEEN NORRIS’S “WALLS OF GOLD.” Although the characters in “Walls of Gold,” which opens at the Majestic Theatre on Wednesday afternoon, are

sophisticated dwellers in the lap of luxury, Sally Eilers, James Dunn and Frank Morgan handle the leading roles so well as to bring out the traits of human nature which are shared by the millionaires of New York and the suburban bungalow-dwellers of any city in the world. The story, adapted from Kathleen Norris’s novel of the same name, is fundamentally an old one, but it receives a new and original interpretation in the hands of a picked cast. Sally Eilers has the role of a young lady named Jeanie Saterlee, who is eminently successful as manageress of an employment bureau. She falls in love with a young engineer called Barnes Ritchie (James Dunn), who makes the fatal mistake of introducing her to his uncle, a millionaire ironmaster. The latter is a notorious philanderer, and thinks he sees in his nephew’s fiancee a wife who will be both an ornament in his home and a complacent figurehead to hide his multitudinous affairs. Barnes is offended by his uncle’s attentions to the girl, and, when the uncle forces upon her

: the gift of an expensive chinchilla coat, I Barnes leaves her, and rushes off in a ; fit of temper to marry her sister, : Honey. Abandoned by Barnes, Jeanie : Saterlee marries the uncle. Neither ■ marriage is a success. Barnes goes away 1 to South America to supervise a big 1 engineering job, while his former : fiancee and her husband tour Europe ; luxuriously but, for her, unhappily. During Barnes’ absence, his wife. I Honey, has a son, and dies in child- ; bed. It is the child that brings the ; climax in the tangled story of ruined t lives and reunites Barnes Ritchie and 1 Jeanie in the end. | J “GRASS.” A TREK FOR LIFE. ’ The Paramount picture, “Grass” now ■ being shown by the touring educational 1 cinema, illustrates the saying» that ■ “truth is stranger than fiction. For I though the film was taken by that > master of faking, Ernest Schoedsack (who photographed. “King Kong” as

well as “Chang”), and . though such scenes as the river crossing almost pass belief, yet every scene is authentic; indeed, the picture is recognized as the most remarkable yet reliable of geographical dramas. It records the annual struggle of the wild tribes of the Zagros mountains to escape from the drought of the Mesopotamian summer to reach grass—and life—on the cool highlands of Iran, the Persian plateau.