ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 22991, 10 September 1936, Page 12

ENTERTAINMENTS

MAJESTIC THEATRE “THE WIDOW FROM MONTE CARLO” c - —— A comedy romance, full of laughter and love affairs, with a series of exciting jewel thefts to give more than the usual action to a rollicking comedy, is “The Widow From Monte Carlo,” starring Warren William, Herbert Mundin and Louise Fazenda. The characters involve a playboy major, a widowed duchess, somewhat flirtatiously inclined, her very proner English relatives and her even more proper fiance, a very rich and persistent widow who is trying to crash society and an American crook who is a fugitive from justice. These are all mixed up in a series of thrilling, although amusing adventures, which lead to a rather amazing climax. Warren William never played with more deliberate and delightful abandon than in his role of the major who sweeps the duchess of! her feet and into his arms after an informal flirtation at the Casino at Monte Carlo to which her Grace has gone incognito for a night of adventure. Dolores Del Rio, as the duchess, is as beautiful and charming as ever, and gives the part a piquant flavour which makes it entirely delightful. As the woman seeking to crash society, especially that of the duchess, Louise Fazenda does an excellent job. Colin Clive gives a good performance as the quite proper and overdignified English diplomat, betrothed to the duchess. Warren Hymer adds a big share of humour as the crook, who teaches the stiff-necked English butler, a part played by Olin Howland, how to play dice, purloins an indiscreet letter the duchess had written the major, which had fallen into the hands of the social climber, who was using it as a means of blackmail. Incidentally the crook steals several diamond necklaces at the same time, which is eventually his undoing. Others in the cast include Herbert Mundin, Ely Melyon, E. E Clive, Mary Forbes, Viva Tattersall and Herbert Evans. COMMENCING SATURDAY. MARX BROS.’ HILARIOUS SUCCESS. “A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.” If there is any truth to the saying that “a laugh a day keeps the doctor away,” the doctors will be put out of business by the riotous Marx Brotheis comedy, “A Night at the Opera,” which comes to the Majestic on Saturday. By actual stop watch timing there are seventy minutes of solid laughs in the latest hit of the Merry Madcaps, which was produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Irving G. Thalberg. Fifty minutes of laughs were actually timed by the director, Sam Wood, when the Marx Brothers took their story on a tour of Pacific Coast cities before a single scene was filmed. The additional twenty minutes of chuckles were added in the studio. Groucho, Chico and Harpo decided that this picture should be a new departure in Marx Brotheis comedy—and it ;s! It is chock full of romance, brilliant singing and original comedy. The story is woven around two young, unknown opera singers, Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones, who are perfectly cast for their parts, and the antics of the Marxes in bringing them together. From Italy, the action is transferred to an ocean liner and then to New York, where the Marx Brothers go into grand opera with a bang. In the notable cast are Walter King, who also has a fine singing voice, Siegfried Rumann, Margaret Dumont. Edward Keane and Robert Emmet O’Connor. REGENT THEATRE. “THE MAN WITH TWO FACES” “A NIGHT AT THE RITZ.” “The Man With Two Faces,” which opened at the Regent Theatre last night, more than'made good the .promises of its producers and exhibitors. It is a dramatic masterpiece, finely acted. The story tells of a theatrical family, the son being an actor and producer, and the daughter one of the popular and talented women on the stage. This girl married a scoundrel who exercises a hypnotic power that well nigh kills her career. Apparently she can act only when motivated by the sinister influence of her husband, and when he disappears, it almost destroys her. She had about overcome this influence when the husband returns from prison, resumes control over her mind, and is sending her to utter ruin when he is murdered. The mystery of the murder forms the base for the plot, and it is sufficient to say that not until the very end of the play does the audience know the identity of the slayer or the motives for the act. Edward G. Robinson, as the brother, Mr Chautard. enacts a double role in a masterly manner. Mary Astor is splendid in the role of the woman dominated by her husband, a role made convincing by the fine work of Louis Calhern. Ricardo Cortez, after years of enacting villains, is given an opportunity to appear in the heroic role of a lover and acquits himself well. The story of “A Night at the Ritz,” the other star feature, concerns a high powered publicity man, his loves and his efforts to put across a chef who can’t cook. William Gargan has the role of the Press agent for a hotel who is fired because one of his girl friends (Dorothy Tree) runs up bills on him and otherwise interferes with his work. Gargan, who has fallen in love with a girl who runs a music shop, visited her home and ate viands such as he had never dreamed of before. He is led to believe that the girl’s brother, grandson of a great Continental chef, had cooked the meal. By clever manoeuvring he gets a contract for the man at the most fashionable hotel in the city, the Ritz. Then he discovers that he can’t even boil water without burning it. A bankers’ convention is scheduled at the hotel for that night and the chef is making concoctions that would poison anyone. Patricia Ellis has the role of the music store girl who finally gets the wild publicity man out of his jam and sobers him down a bit. Allan Jenkins will be seen in a rough and tumble comedy role as a chauffeur and the devoted slave of Gargan. “THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.” THE REGENT TO-MORROW. From the Paramount Studios comes the first outdoor picture to be filmed entirely in colour, “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” coming to the Regent to-morrow, and it is said that so well and so naturally have the colours been blended, that the impression it has created will ensure a much more extensive use of colour in the future. In past colour films, the use of bright red and other shades, dazzling almost to a point of harshness, has tended to attract the attention of the mind instead of helping it to grasp more fully the subject of the scene. But in “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” colour is never predominant. Rather is it a subsidiary feature, just as is good photography or direction, but it certainly makes a picture that would be exceptional even in black and white, one that is outstanding indeed. Against a background of trees mirrored in a gleaming lake and of mountain scenery which is superbly presented, the story stands vividly

clear. The film shows the advance of spring and the gradual unfolding of the tender green leaves in colour amazingly natural. It traces the coming of summer and the reaction of the mountain vegetation to the warm summer sun. Then, as summer gives way to autumn, the leaves of the trees are shown turning colour—just a tinge of gold at first, and then slowly deepening until the whole countryside presents a true autumn appearance in russet and deep red. Yet all is done so naturally and the tinting is so modest and unobtrusive, that the colour process remains entirely subordinate to the story all the way through. Adapted from the novel by John Fox, “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine” has always been a story to attract the attention of film producers. Perhaps this is because it is one that has almost universal appeal. It was first made in 1915 by Cecil B. de Mille and was again produced in 1922 by Charles Maigne. The story is one of ignorance, jealousy and romance among the hallcivilized people of the Virginian Mountains. Two clans, the Tollivers and the Falins, are hereditary enemies. Coal is discovered in rhe mountains where they live, and a railroad becomes necessary. This introduces Fred MacMurray as the young railroad engineer who gradually displaces the adopted son of the Tollivers, Henry Fonda, in the affections of the untamed mountain girl, Sylvia Sidney. It is a story, stirring in the parts which tell of the fueds between the two clans, and the ways in which they are given expression, and one which is most satisfying and holds the attention without relax from beginning to end. CIVIC THEATRE. FINE DOUBLE FEATURE BILL. DRAMA AND COMEDY. A romantic thriller lifted right out of the rut of mediocrity in screen entertainment, “I Cover the Waterfront,” is the main attraction on the current programme at the Civic Theatre. A large audience again last night thoroughly enjoyed the film for it possesses an exciting appeal of sustained interest all cf its own. Screen actors have found themselves in many strange situations during the filming of pictures, but no assignment could ever have been so bizarre as the experience of a group in this picture. They were paid to be modern Jonahs, only instead of whales they had to live inside huge sharks. This fantastic situation was necessary to fit the story action in the picture based on Max Miller’s best-selling book, “I Cover the Waterfront.” Ben Lyon, playing opposite Claudette Colbert, has the role of a reporter who aids police officers in running down a gang of pseudo-fishermen, headed by Ernest Torrence, whose real business is smuggling Chinese into the United States. After landing hordes of the undesirable aliens under the very noses of the authorities, the mystery finally is solved. The Chinese are inside sharks delivered to a fertilizer factory. In bringing this action to the screen, the film company, under the direction of James Cruze, the man responsible for “The Covered Wagon,” “Old Ironsides,” and other notable productions, cruised the high seas off the California coast until it encountered a school of huge sharks. Returning more than 100 miles to the waterfront location at the port of San Pedro, the sharks were strung up with the aid of steel cranes, and the Chinese were placed inside them for some of tlie climactic scenes in “I Cover the Waterfront.” Bound hand and foot with chains (the smugglers, in the story, being always ready to throw them overboard and destroy the evidence in case of pursuit and capture by United States Coastguard boats), the Chinese extras were enabled to breathe by means of a gas mask contrivance, attached to rubber tubes running to the opened jaws of the dead monsters. Outside of having to burn their clothes and scrub themselves thoroughly after emulating Jonah, the Oriental actors suffered no ill effects as a result of the unique experience. On the same programme is “Advice to the Lovelorn,” a hilarious tale of adventures and misadventures in a newspaper reporter’s life. Lee Tracy has the leading role. STATE THEATRE. DOUBLE-FEATURE PROGRAMME. A particularly bright and entertaining double-feature programme is the current attraction at the State Theatre. Both pictures are strong in clever, witty and humorous dialogue and novel situations which create abundant opportunity for speedy action. Carole Lombard will be seen with Preston Foster in “Love Before Breakfast.” which is said to be a brilliant sophisticated com. edy. Miss Lombard is seen as a modern young woman who demands the right to her own opinions, even when they include the desire to marry two young men. The fun begins when one of her suitors gives her a black eye accidentally. From that pom 4 -, every time he tries to win her favour he does something else which stirs her wrath more. Her spoken lines snap like a whip, crackling like static in a lightning storm. The climax of the laughs is heightened by the happenings during a storm at sea. “Welcome Home,” the second feature of this fine pr ■’ramme, is a laugh-filled picture about four smooth swindlers who find rough going in a small town, with James Dunn, Arline Judge, Raymond Walburn and William Frawsley heading the cast. The story centres about Dunn, a boy who brings his light-fingered friends to his home town and decides to reform. But habit proves too strong for this quartet of charming scoundrels and before they know what they are doing they are “taking” the local citizens. There are romantic complications for Dunn, hairbreadth escapes for his friends. A hilarious climax solves all their troubles and sees the four gentle grafters off on their way to greener fields. COMMENCING SATURDAY. JANE WITHERS IN “GENTLE JULIA.” In “Gentle Julia,” the Fox picture which will be screened at the State Theatre on Saturday, Booth Tarkington’s funniest story and one of the screen’s most talented little comediennes are brought together in a heartwarming romance of the early days of the century. Happy, impish Jane Withers, in her most mischievot s mood, is the leading player of this picture, which features Marsha Hunt, Tom Brovvn and Jackie Searl, the little villain‘of “Ginger,” in the principal supporting roles. Dealing simultaneously with Jane and Jackie’s hilaricus feud and Miss Hunt’s amusing romantic difficulties, the picture shifts : ts attention from children to ad Its, until it finally blends the two streams of the story to make little Jane a sort of inadvertent Cupid. It is a bright story and provides the young star with a further opportunity of showing her undoubted powers as actress, singer and dancer. THEATRE ROYAL, WINTON. “FIRST A GIRL.” The picture “First a Girl,” which will be shown at Winton to-night and tomorrow night, offers Jessie Matthews such opportunities that the verdict is never in doubt. As a dress-suited boy she looks devastating, and as a featured, graceful dancer in a gilded cage she is a dream. Scenes in “back-stage” theatre surroundings are skilfully interwoven with the exotic atmosphere of the French Riviera. Just as sophisticated is the blending of the cast. Jessie Matthews and Sonnie Hale are the ideal

team; each is a perfect foil to the other, each is, nevertheless strictly individual. “The Other Couple,” played by the beautiful Anna Lee and the darkly handsome Griffiths Jones, lends added romance and the necessary balance to the clever story. Anna Lee, already famous for her seductive, sophisticated beauty, is the worldly young lady who, seeing through Elizabeth’s masquerade, jealously fights for her latest fiance Robert, but fails. Griffiths Jones, playing Robert, is the blase young man about town who falls head over heels with little Elizabeth and, carrying himself with debonair sureness of touch, wins her. ST. JAMES THEATRE, GORE. “WHIPSAW.” Adventure and romance, drama and comedy are deftly blended in “Whipsaw,” which brings Myrna Loy to the | screen in a new hit with Spencer Tracy as her co-star. The picture opens to-day at the St. James Theatre, Gore. Seldom has Hollywood given theatregoers a more happily mated team of stars than Miss Loy and Tracy. _ The latter has a role in which his delightful brand of egotism and bombast is tempered with an entirely human romance. Miss Loy’s characterization gives her an opportunity for the whimsical lightness she first displayed so fetchingly in “The Thin Man” and which marked her as a vivid new screen personality. “Whipsaw” is a story of “angles.” Not only does the locale shift with lightning rapidity from London to New York and thence throughout many mid-western cities, but the mood and the direction of the story shifts almost as rapidly. The supporting programme includes a Laurel and Hardy comedy, and also a Pete Smith sports thrill. REGENT THEATRE, GORE. “HOPALONG CASSIDY.” Sensational horsemanship, exciting gun battles, red-blooded action and heart-stirring drama are part and parcel of “Hopalong Cassidy,” which begins at the Regent Theatre, Gore, to-day. The story, laid against the vivid background of the Old West in the days when cattle rustlers and cattle barons vied for supremacy on the open ranges, discloses how the famous Western character got his nickname and who gave it to him. Boyd and his two inseparable pals, Jimmy Ellison and Frank McGlynn, jun., are three adventurous cowboys who ride the ranges as members of Charles Middleton’s ranch, the Bar-20. When the cattle from the H-2 ranch, owned by Robert Warwick and his daughter, Paula Stone, trespass on the water rights of the Bar-20, the boys endeavour to prevent a recurrence and as a result they find plenty of trouble, and romance for one of their number. The supporting programme includes a “Pop-Eye” cartoon, “You Gotta be a Football Hero,” and screen song, newsreel and so on.