ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 23407, 14 January 1938, Page 5

ENTERTAINMENTS

MAJESTIC THEATRE DOUBLE FEATURE FINALLY “Too Many Parents” the story of the children of wealthy parents too busy to care for them and how they are practically orphans is depicted by a clever bunch of youngsters headed by Billy Lee, Douglas Scott and Francis Fraser. “Spend Thrift” which features Henry Fonda—Pat Paterson— Mary Brian is a fast screening race track comedy drama This programme will conclude today. ACTION DOUBLE FEATURE “LADY FROM NOWHERE” Mary Astor will be seen in her first starring role in Columbia s comedymelodrama, “Lady From Nowhere, which will open at the Majestic Theatre tomorrow. In addition to Miss Astor s bow as a full-fledged star, the film also introduces to the theatre public the new screen “find,” Charles Quigley, who plays opposite Miss Astor. “Lady From Nowhere” concerns the serio-comic adventures of Polly, a manicurist, who acts as an uninvited to a gangland murder. Forced to flee for her life from the vengeance of the racketeer murderer, Ed Lustig, played by Norman Willis, Miss Astor, or Polly, lands in the small town of Clearview. There she meets Quigley, a local newspaper reporter, who gets her a job as a waitress. Events are complicated no end when Polly assumes the name of one Dorothy Barnes, an heiress who had run away from home when her father forbade her marrying a foreign Prince. The police, Lustig, the gangster, and Barnes, the millionaire pursuing his petulant daughter, soon converge on Clearview in search of Polly. That is when things really begin to happen, with the sensational climax reached when Quigley’s grandfather summons the local “minute men” to capture the fleeing Lustig. Victor Jory and Eelyn Venable have the leading roles in “Streamline Express,” a new Action Pictures Release, the associate feature. The film is a comedy drama, set on board the express train of the future, and the keynote of the production is ultra-modernity, both in story and settings. Comedy and drama are skilfully mingled in the interwoven destinies of a group of passengers on a trans-contin-ental run. A theatrical producer; his runaway star; a gentleman crook; a harassed husband, whose wife is about to have a baby; a philanderer, his wife and the other woman—these are a few of the characters who appear in the swiftly moving story. The supporting cast includes Ralph Forbes, Esther Ralston, Sidney Blackmer, Erin O’Brien Moore and Vincent Barnett.

REGENT THEATRE

RADIANT DEANNA DURBIN “100 MEN AND A GIRL” Into the artificiality of the screen, Deanna Durbin enters like a breath of fresh air; and one wonders whether advancing age and sophistication will spoil her natural charm. ' However, it is abundantly with her now, so now is the time to make the most of it, and her new picture, “One Hundred Men and a Girl,”—which Invercargill audiences are now privileged to see at the Regent Theatre, provides the opportunity. Many singers can offer nothing in personality, but with Deanna voice and personality—song and smile—are inseparable. They merge into one. That child who can sing gloriously Mozart’s “Allelujah” and “The Drinking Song” from “La Traviata” is also a merry little rogue with a feather in her hat, who crashes her way into solemn private, orchestral rehearsals, eluding the fat doorkeeper. Through rows of empty chairs the doorkeeper pursues, and in a parallel row a feather is seen to pass down the rows of chair-backs. Under the feather is Deanna, an unrepentant fugitive. Fate wills that she outwits the doorkeeper, and breaks in on a rehearsal conducted by the great Leopold Stokowski (Stokowski himself, no mere actor substitute!) who yields to Deanna’s charm, as must everybody. Glorious music flows, and Stokowski, a dramatic figure, is a revelation to anyone who has never seen him conduct—yet the abiding memory of the picture is the flowering girlhood of this juvenile star, who by an art of her own can combine the genius of classical music with sweet fifteen. There are scores of operatic stars who could have sung the music, yet not one who could steal from her this secret of personal magic. Many of her asides with the hundred men—her competition with Mischa Auer for seating accommodation, and her encounters with the taxi-driver who was forced to invest eight dollars twenty cents in her voice—belong to true comedy. The great mass of people will need no better recommendation to see Deanna Durbin than Deanna herself,

but the musical public will note that Leopold Stokowski and his Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra render the following: sth Symphony (Tschaikowski), Rakowsky March (Berlioz), Introduction to the 3rd of “Lohengrin (Wagner), 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody (Liszt), “Zampa” Overture (Herold). In addition to the Mozart and Verdi compositions already mentioned, everybody’s sweetheart sings “It’s Raining Sunbeams’’ and “Music in my Dreams.” This picture alone would be sufficient attraction for any audience, but much more is offered at the Regent. Chief among the supporting items is the first of the new series of the New Zealand Review, dealing with the Marlborough Sounds in holiday time. Box plans are at H. and J. Smith’s and Rice’s Regent Shop.

STATE THEATRE

“SLAVE SHIP” Storming in epic sweep over half the world, as the last slaver sails on its last desperate voyage, the 20th Cen-tury-Fox super production, Slave Ship,” commences today at the State Theatre, giving the screen a new claimant for the title of mightiest of all the sea sagas. “Slave Ship” co-stars Warner Baxter and Wallace Beery in a pulsing tale of the slave-trading era, with Elizabeth Allan and Mickey Rooney among those on the boat as, with decks reddened by mutiny, it roams the seas on its final fury-racked voyage. In the most colourful role of a colourful career, Warner Baxter plays Captain Jim Lovett, romantic scourge of two seas, who defies the navies of the world, is betrayed by a shipmate, and fights at last for love in the greatest sea adventure of them all. Wallace Beery, whose long list of shipboard roles reads like a veritable history of the salt-water cinema, sinks his teeth into a meaty role that presents him as the villainous mate of the slaver —big-fisted, bull-headed, genial, and treacherous to his dying breath, one minute a roaring beast, the next, a gentle child; friend and foe .alike to the captain he serves—and betrays. “Slave Ship” traces the tempestuous career of a swift barque engaged in the slave trade, and its courageous captain, Warner Baxter, who planned to retire from “blackbirding” to settle down to a new life with his young bride, Elizabeth Allan. As they sail on Baxter’s boat on the honeymoon cruise which is to mark the end of its days as a slaver, they find that they have been betrayed by the mate, Wallace Beery, and the crew, avid for more slaving profits. The honeymoon cruise is turned into a voyage in which they are continually brought face to face with danger and death. Sought by the navies of every nation, and torn by mutiny aboard, the salve ship sails on through adventures on the high seas and along the African coast, and it is a dramatic climax which clears the future for the captive couple and sends the ill-fated slaver to its ominous destiny.

CIVIC THEATRE

“RAMONA” GORGEOUS COLOUR FEATURE Probably never before has such a splendid double-feature been presented as that now showing at the Civic Theatre. Firstly, “Ramona,” in rainbow natural technicolour, starring Loretta Young, Don Ameche, Pauline Frederick and a cast of thousands, this greatest of all Californian Indian romances contains spectacle splashed in bold, bright strokes, flashing action on a far-flung scale, and a story studded with fiestas, flowering deserts, haciendas, riding Indians, laughter and kisses. It took two years of preparation and six months in the filming. On the same programme is “Sabotage,” a British Gaumont picture which holds the thrills of a menace over London—of spies and wreckers whose one object is to destroy. It was made by Alfred Hitchcock, well known for his direction of such pictures as “Secret Agent” and “39 Steps.” It is a skil-fully-made film of an unusual mystery. Patrons are advised to book, as big audiences are expected during the season.

THEATRE ROYAL, WINTON

“Men in Exile,” the First National melodrama which opens today, is laid in one of those ports in the Caribbean Sea. The settings are said to be entirely out of the beaten track of movie tradition and the lives of the characters are naturally coloured by the bizarre nature, of the environment. Dick Purcell plays an innocent murder suspect who flees to Caribo. Criminals who have sought refuge here try to draw him into their net Even in this queer corner of the globe, romance is not barred.