ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 23740, 11 February 1939, Page 20

ENTERTAINMENTS

STATE THEATRE JANE WITHERS’S BEST The hosts of admirers of breezy little Jane Withers will have an opportunity of seeing her at her best in her latest film, “Rascals,” which is showing at the State Theatre at 2.0 and 8.0 today finally. She has had good roles in her previous pictures, but she is suited right down to the ground in this, as a hoydenish, match-making young gipsy. Robert Wilcox and Rochelle Hudson provide the romantic interest, while an added attraction is the appearance of Borrah Minevitch and his gang of crazy harmonica players. Those who have seen this band before in small parts will rejoice to find that they figure quite prominently in this production, and are given ample scope to display their unusual talents in typically eccentric manner. As the story unfolds to the tune of the Minevitch music, Rochelle Hudson, as a rich young heiress, is seen fleeing from marriage to a titled fortune hunter, when she stumbles on a gipsy encampment where Tony (Robert Wilcox), a young college graduate, and “Gipsy” (Jane Withers) are staying. Gipsy gets to work with commendable promptitude in her well-known manner to get Tony and the heiress “sparking”—with the results that can be imagined by those who have seen the little lady in action before. Supports at the State include a special, “The European Crisis,” showing graphic pictures of war preparations in London, the evacuation of the civil population to the suburbs, distribution of gas masks, trench digging in Hyde Park, the signing of the Four-Power Pact and Mr Chamberlain’s speech, and so on. Plans are at Begg’s till noon, then at the State Theatre, telephone 645. “SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS”

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” begins at the. State, Invercargill, on Monday next at five sessions, 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 4.45 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. As box plans for each session of the short five-day season have now been open for three weeks patrons are advised to delay no longer but to reserve immediately as it will be impossible to accommodate in five days all those who will want to see this masterpiece. With “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” the screen has achieved a new artistry that is distinctive, appealing and all its own. A new fashion in entertainment has been established and a standard set high enough to ensure that others seeking to emulate it must be of the very 1 st. This supremely beautiful and altogether entrancing adaptation of the famous fairy tale is an outstanding triumph in production. From the technical standp int alone it is unquestionably the finest full-length colour film that has yet been seen i: New Zealand. To see it is to realize what science has already done for the screen and to obtain some idea of the beauties it still has in store. As an entertainment, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is fascinating. It is much more than a colour cartoon, in the : .nse that cartoons have been known in the past. It is the animation of one of the most absorbing and beautiful fairy tales of all time. It is inspiredly told and designed. Always with a background of most exquisite taste, the story of little Snow White’s adventures, with their laughter and tears, joys and sorrows, is fully told, and endowed with a greater beauty than it possessed while it remained in print. The moral that rig’.t must triumph over wrong is retained, and everything ends happily, just as It should and just as was intended. Box plans for each session of the five-day season are at the State Theatre. MAJESTIC THEATRE “TROPIC HOLIDAY” TODAY MUSICAL EXTRAVAGANZA

Dorothy Lamour, the star who scored such sensational hits in “The Jungle Princess” and “Her Jungle Love” is the featured player in “Tropic Holiday,” Paramount’s South American musical extravaganza, now showing at the Majestic Theatre. An ambitious cast of celebrated players supports Miss Lamour, which includes Ray Milland, Bob Burns, Martha Raye and Binnie Barnes, while six new songs have been written especially for the picture by Augustin Lara, the Irving Berlin of Mexico. Among these are “Tropic Night,” “Tonight We Live,” “My First Love” and “The Lamp on the Corner.” No less than three rumba bands are featured and scores of Mexican beauties make up the choruses and ballets. The picture tells a lighthearted story of a young author (Ray Milland) who escapes to the tropics to avoid modern civilization and then has to choose between a Mexican beauty (Dorothy Lamour) and the girl back home (Binnie Barnes). Bob Burns plays the part of a would-be senator from Oklahoma and together with Martha Raye as a secretary provides the laughs of the picture. John (“Bulldog Drummond”) Howard, Lloyd Nolan, Shirley Ross, J. Carrol Naish, Porter Hall and Anna Q. Nilsson are the featured players in Paramount’s “Prison Farm,” the associate feature at the Majestic tonight. A new side of prison life in America, that of, the backward and inhuman prison camp, is revealed to the public for the first time in this new prison drama. The love of the wrong man (Lloyd Nolan) gets an innocent girl (Shirley Ross) into one of these brutal prison camps and the love of the right man (John Howard, as' the camp’s supervising doctor) wins for her freedom and new life. The girl elopes with her lover not knowing that he is fleeing from justice. The current weekly cinesound news service will also be screened. Plans are now on view at H. and J. Smith’s departmental store box office, Rice’s Majestic Theatre confectionery or Majestic Theatre, telephone 738. REGENT THEATRE “DAD AND DAVE COME TO TOWN” BERT BAILEY ON THE STAGE Bert Bailey, who helped to make the Rudd family so popular on stage and screen, will be present in person on the stage of the Regent Theatre tonight and Sor the first time an Inveroorgifi audience will have the pleastireable experience of hearing some interesting reminiscences from the lips jf one of Australia’s most popular personalities. Seven years ago the famous Rudd family was first presented on the Australian screen, after nearly 30 years of stage characterization. In “On Our Selection” they made their screen debut in much the same way as they had delighted audiences for so long over the footlights. And the amazing success of the film, “On Our Selection,” is now screen history. But that was seven years ago. In the new Cinesound comedy, “Dad and Dave Come to Town,” the Rudd family has been modernized. In Bert Bailey, the change is merely in his clothes when he reaches the city, and bursts forth in his frock salon a vision of sartorial splendour. His “Dad” is still the same fiery, blunt and honest

old man in “Dad and Dave Come to Town,” because his characterization is so natural, so intensely human, that even in 20 years’ time it would still be essentially the Australian small farmer. “Mum,” as played by Connie Martyn in this 1938 version, is still a homely woman. But a natural dignity and motherly sweetness gives her distinction when she joins in the family adventures in the c:ty. “Jill’ is a new addition to the Rudd Family.' Played by Shirley Ann Richards, she is presented to the audience as a typical modern and educated country girl, who runs a dress-making business in a country town. She is “Dad’s” eldest daughter, and the pride of the old man s life. She is wholesome and sweet, but she is also a shrewd business woman. And it is her business ability that helps ‘dad to run the dress salon he has inherited under his brother’s will. “Sarah, Dad s second daughter, is a very different characterization to the “Sarah’ of ‘On Our Selection.” Valerie Scanlan, 18-year-old Sydney girl, makes her screen debut in this part. She is the young sister of any Australian family. She is a simple, frank, open-faced flapper, deep in the throes of her first love affair with “Billy Ryan.” Box plans are filling rapidly at H. and J. Smith’s and Rice’s Regent shop. CIVIC THEATRE “THE HURRICANE” SAGA OF THE SOUTH SEAS Samuel Goldwyn knew that he had a great theme in “The Hurricane,” which will be shown until Monday at the Civic, with Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall heading a cast which'includes Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine and Jerome Cowan. In this dramatic saga of the South Seas, written by Charles Nordhoff and James Normal Hall, authors of “Mutiny on the Bounty,” he was confident he had a story rich in every element of cinematic entertainment. “The Hurricane,” with its romance, its drama, its picturesque setting, and its spectacular climax, is a story ready-cut to the screen. On the low island of Manukura, 600 miles from Tahiti, twe native sweethearts, Terangi and Marama, are wed. Their brief happiness is shattered when Terangi, returning to Tahiti on the trading schooner of which he is first mate, is imprisoned for striking a white man who insults him. Box plans are at the theatre and at Begg’s.