The SCREEN and its STARS

Southland Times, Issue 25343, 23 July 1935, Page 5

The SCREEN and its STARS

(By

“Columbine”.)

THE REGENT

Now Showing: Finnic Hurst's “Imitation Of Life" (Claudette Colbert, Warren William. Rochelle Hudson. Ned Sparks, Louise Neavers). Commencing Wednesday: “The Firebird” (Veree Teasdale, Ricardo Cortez. Lionel Atwill, Anita Louise) and "Morocco Nights”—Colour Revue. Commencing Saturday: "Sweet Adeline” (Irene Dunne. Donald Woods, Hugh Herbert. Ned Sparks and the Vitaphone Ballet). Coming Attractions: "Kid Millions” (Eddie Cantor. Ann Sothern. Ethel Merman and the Goldwyn Beauties); "The Strange Conspiracy" (Edward Arnold. Arthur Byron. Paul Kelly, Irene Franklin. Janet Beecher): Gene Stratton Porter's "Girl of the Limberlost” (Marian Marsh, Ralph Morgan, Louise Dresser); "Living On Velvet” (Kav Francis): "The Good Fairy" (Herbert Marshall. Margaret Sullivan); “Wedding Night" (Gary Cooper. Anna Sten); "Golddiggers of 1935 ; "Clive of India” (Ronald Colman); "Ruggles of Red Gap" (Charles Laughton). * * * * “Imitation of Life,” from the story written by Fannie Hurst, is now showing at the Regent, with Claudette Colbert and Warren Williams in the leading roles. The story tells of one of the most appealing characters the novelist has yet (Treated, Bea Pullman. Bea Pullman is a young woman who after the death of her husband, whom she has never really loved, sets out to support her little daughter and herself by selling maple syrup from door

to door. With the help of a coloured woman she opens a little pancake shop and later makes a fortune by boxing the pancake flour and selling it. Then real love enters her life, but her daughter is then grown up and an unusual triangle situation develops. Bea realizes that success and fame do not constitute real living, that it has all been an imitation of life until love came.

“The Firebird,” a strange and fascinating romance set in the background of Austria’s gay capital, comes to the Regent Theatre to-morrow with a fourstar cast, including Verree Teasdale, Ricardo Cortez, Lionel Atwill and Anita Louise. The four form a quartette, who together with several others, are involved in a most unusual clandestine romance and a baffling murder mystery. Miss Teasdale and Miss Louise are seen in the roles of mother and daughter with Atwill as the husband and father, and Cortez the menacing, although magnetic figure who threatens to destroy the aristocratic household. The theme, based on Lajos Zilahy’s play and Gilbert Miller’s sensational Broadway production, deals with the fatal fascination of a young girl for a popular but unscrupulous actor which ultimately results in a baffling murder. Several persons are suspected of the crime and two separate women confess to it. The police unravel the mystery.

The film version of “Sweet Adeline,” the musical comedy hit which set New York a-whistling, comes to the Regent on Saturday, with Irene Dunne in the leading role. The picture is laid in the glamorous Broadway threatrical district; a fashionable trysting place for yound bloods and their lady loves on the outskirts of the city and in a picturesque Hoboken beer garden of the gay nineties. No Broadway musical composer has more big song hits to his credit than Jerome Kern who wrote the music for this production and also the lyrics in collaboration with Oscar Kammerstein 11. Eight of the catchy original ballads of the production are sung in the picture while two new ones

have been added by Kern. There _ are two imposing and mammoth specialty numbers in which scores of pretty girls participate and other dance ensembles all staged by Bobby Connolly, famous Broadway musical director.

THE MAJESTIC

Now Showing: minted Veil” (Gret Garbo, Herbert Marshall, George Bren. Warner Gland, Jean Hersholt, Katharine Alexander). Commencing Wednesday: "The Gay Bride" (Carole Lombard, Chester Morris, Zasu Pitts, Leo Carrillo. Sam Hardy). Commencing Saturday and Monday: "Desirable" (Jean Muir, George Brent, Verree Teasdale, John Halliday). Coming Attractions: "Damaged Lives" (Special cast); "Song of the Plough (Stewart Rome, Rosalind Fuller, Allan Jeayes, Kenneth Kove. Jack Livesey, Albert Richardson); "Naughty Marietta (Jeanette MacDonald. Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Elsa Lanchester); "Wings in the Dark” (Myrna Loy, Cary Grant, Hobart Cavanaugh, Roscoe Karns, Dean Jagger); "Forsaking All Others" (Rooert Montgomery, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Billie Burke, Charles Butterworth).

A comedy-farce, “The Gay Bride, comes to the Majestic to-morrow. The story, written by Charles Francis Coe, deals with the hilarious difficulties ol racketeers after repeal when their enormous profits have been cut oil. To add to their troubles an adventurous blonde discovers the gold-digging possibilities among the vicious but dumb gentry of the underworld. Carole Lombard is said to give sparkle and zest to her role as Blonde Mary, who knows fron. whence the gold can be dug.. Chester Morris, as an ambitious young man who attends to clerical duties in a racketeer’s “hangout” while saving money to set up a garage, is a powerful male lead.

“Desirable,” Warner Bros.’ drama of Broadway’s theatrical life and its contact with New York’s social set, come.to the Majestic Theatre on Saturday, with an all-star cast headed by Jean Muir, George Brent, Verree Teasdale and John Halliday. The picture, based on the story by the famous magazine writer, Mary McCall, jun., is filled with highly dramatic and intensely emotional situations, with rapier-like dialogue and a climatic clash between a woman of the world and her unsophisticated daughter. Miss Muir plays the part of a sincere and unspoiled girl who has been hidden away in a finishing school by her mother, a reigning beauty of the Broadway stage who selfishly fears the loss of her own popularity if it should become known that she has a grown daughter. Veree Teasdale has the role of the self-centred domineering mother, who, after reluctantly admitting to the girl’s existence, tries to marry her off to the scion of a snobbish family of blue bloods whom the girl does not love. George Brent portrays a man of the world, once devoted to the mother, who falls in love with the unspoiled daughter. Charles Starrett is the rich socialite who is intrigued by the charm and beauty of the girl, but whose family is shocked by her unconventionality and utter frankness.

Cary Grant, who was one of the stars of “The Eagle and the Hawk,” returns again to a role in an aviation, film, Paramount’s “Wings in the Dark.” The picture, starring Grant with Myrna Loy, comes soon to the Majestic Theatre. Although “The Eagle and the Hawk” was a picture of war aviation, “Wings in the Dark” is devoted to depicting the thrills and romance in the development of peace-time aviation. Grant plays the role of a scientific explorer of the air, a man who strives to make aviation safe by perfecting blindflying. When he is blinded in an accident, Myrna Loy, the girl who loves him, helps him to carry, on his work with money she earns in spectacular stunt flying. Grant learns how she has has been helping him; he leaves her rather than accept charity. But fate intervenes, and Grant, in a gripping dramatic climax, goes on a flight that saves Miss Loy’s life and unites the lovers.

Joan Crawford will star in “The Garen of Allah.” This talkie is to be one f the three most lavish and expensive reductions which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer will make this year. A small army of studio workers is reconstructing sets representative of the Sahara desert. Foui oases have taken shape and several more are under construction.

A new child star is glittering brightly in the Hollywood firmament. She is Jane Withers, a sweet, intelligent youngster of nine years, and an extraordinary actress. She did so well in a recent picture with Shirley Temple that the Fox people decided to give her a story written especially for her. Probably the essential difference, as you may agree, between Shirley Temple and Jane Withers, is that Shirley is cute, bedimpled and pretty, with an amazing photographic memory, while Jane does act, and has a definite personality which registers at once on the screen.