ENTERTAINMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 23774, 23 March 1939, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

CIVIC THEATRE TWO FEATURES FOR 6D The first picture on the Civic halfprice programme tonight is “Nancy Steele is Missing,” starring Victor McLaglen, Peter Lorre, Walter Connolly, John Carradine, June Lang and Jane Darwell. The twenty-year span covered by the picture begins in the troubled days of 1917. The daughter of Walter Connolly, a munitions magnate, sensationally disappears. Shortly afterwards, Victor McLaglen, a hulking giant whose knowledge of the horrors of war has embittered him against all those who help to make it, becomes involved in a brawl with the police and, because he is accused of being “proalien,” gets an unnecessarily severe gaol sentence. Taunted as a “spy” by fellow prisoners, McLaglen is made the goat for an attempted prison break, and is sentenced to life. Only a shrewd cellmate, the calculating Peter Lorre, suspects that the huge prisoner is concealing some dark and disturbing secret. When McLaglen is released for good behaviour 23 years later, the suspicious Lorre keeps on his trail. The conflict between McLaglen, who tries to restore the lost Nancy Steele to her father, and Lorre who would substitute a false claimant of his own, builds to a tense, dramatic climax. June Lang and Robert Kent are featured in the cast, which includes Shirley Deane, John Carradine, Jane Darwell and Frank Conroy. The second picture “We’re, on the Jury” is a positive riot of fun starring Helen Brodrick, Victor Moore and Billy Gilbert. Plans are at Begg’s or the Civic Theatre, telephone 1744.

STATE THEATRE

“LILY OF LAGUNA” The final showing will take place at the State Theatre at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. today of “Lily of Laguna,” starring Talbot O’Farrell Nora Swinburne and Richard Ainsley. FRED ASTAIRE, GINGER ROGERS “CAREFREE” TOMORROW RKO Radio’s new “Carefree” reunites Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in what is hailed as the most delightful screen vehicle of their brilliant careers. The film will be screened tomorrow at the Stale Theatre at 2.0 p.m. and 8.0 p.m. and a special late "session at 10.30 p.m. Modern in theme and treatment, the picture deals with the triangular romance between a popular actress, a distinguished psychiatrist and a successful lawyer. Astaire portrays the medical man and Ralph Bellamy is the attorney, whose uncertain love affair with Miss Rogers leads him to call on Astaire for help. From this beginning arise :he complications of the story; Astaire gives Ginger Rogers a course of treatment which leads her to fall in love with him instead of with Bellamy, and which involves her in a series of wild escapades. And after Astaire, in defence, has firmly planted in her mind the notion that he is a monster, he suddenly discovers that he is in love with her himself. Like all Astaire-Rogers vehicles, “Carefree” is well equipped with melodies and dances. “The Yam,” said to be the popular dance hit of the season and which almost any amateur dancer can perform, is featured by the stars, as is the romantic “Change Partners” routine, a spectacular dance rivalling their “Cheek to Cheek” and “Night and Day” routines in earlier films. An ingenious golf dance in which Astaire solos, and a fantastic dream sequence comprise the other dancing specialties. Besides the songs of “The Yam” and “Change' Partners,” the ' musical features include “The Night is Filled with Music” and “I Used to be Colour Blind.” Jack Carson is hailed as a real “find” in “Carefree” with his work as Astaire’s young assistant. Luella Gear, noted Broadway comedienne, as Miss Rogers s aunt; Clarence Kolb, of the famous Kolb and Dill team, as a testy judge; and Walter Kingsford and Franklin Pangborn have other principal supporting roles as well as Robert B. Mitchell and his St. Brendan Boys. Special supports include Walt Disney’s Donald Duck in “Donald’s Better Self” and The March of Time, No. 12, “G-Men of the Sea.” Box plans are at Begg’s or the State Theatre. Telephone 645.

REGENT THEATRE

“THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS” NEW M.G.M. PICTURE Robert Montgomery and Virginia Bruce are the stars of “The First Hundred Years,” the new M.G.M. picture at the Regent, while the strong supporting cast includes Binnie Barnes, Alan Dinehart, Warren William and several other well-known players. The story is an amusing combination of clever dialogue, engaging situations and amusing incidents. Gay and airy in detail, without any tendency to engage in breast-beating or hand-wringing, the story told is one of domestic discord, with a marriage foundering on the rocks of misunderstanding by husband and wife as to their respective family duties and financial responsibilities. The wife, played by Miss Bruce, is a successful theatrical agent who wants to be the family bread-winner and keep her husband (Montgomery) more or less as a pet. Above all, she does not want to leave New York for New Bedford, where he has landed a job and wants her to go and live with him, to be just a wife and not a business woman. One squabble leads to another, and all culminate in a divorce action in which, thorough the bombastic blundering of her attorney, the wife is forced to pay her husband alimony. An uncle’s peace-making intentions prove of no avail until a thunderstorm convinces the headstrong girl that she needs a husbandly shoulder on which to rest. Legal intervention complicates reconciliations momentarily. When she learns that there is to be a family, however, and she tells her husband, both are happy to go to New Bedford. Short subjects of the highest standard, including the latest Pete Smith Oddity, “Fisticuffs,” and Robert Benchley’s “How To Read,” together with miniatures, cartoon and the latest tcpicals, introduce another of those excellent programmes for which the Regent is famous.

MAJESTIC THEATRE

“SAN FRANCISCO” This is definitely the last opportunity that patrons will have of seeing “San Francisco,” the mightiest motion picture in screen history. This is the third occasion on which this picture has had

a season in Invercargill and the public response has been just as great this time as on the first and second occasions. Jeanette MacDonald, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy are the stars of this outstanding Metro-Goldwyn.-Mayer production. “A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER” “OURSELVES ALONE” Declared among the ten best pictures of 1938 by the screen’s most valued critics, “A Slight Case Of Murder,” a farcical comedy satire that frankly and unreservedly makes fun of the whole business of “gangsterism” and racketeering, will begin a three day season at the Majestic Theatre tomorrow. Edward G. Robinson, who in the past has always been cast as the screen’s No. 1 bad man, is presented as the star comedian of this attraction and it looks very much as though comedians in general will have look to their laurels, as his performance in “A Slight Case Of Murder” marks him as a most talented fun maker. He is a different Edward G. Robinson. He is no menacing, gun-carrying, sinister, underworld character this time. His role is that of a fellow who was a “beer-baron” in dry days and, since repeal, has been trying to get along as a legitimate brewer. But he is a “dry” at heart, and has never tasted his own brew. His men, who used to run rum, “hijack” rivals’ loads and force Robinson’s beer upon the speak-easy proprietors, are now salesmen without guns, forced to dress nicely and have daily shaves and baths. In addition to all of this, his beer is so bad that nobody wants to drink it. Robinson loses all of his money except about half a million, and a rival outfit tries to get away with that. Then comes the shooting—for naturally there must be gunplay in a gangster-racketeering picture. But the would-be looters 'shoot each other up, and the result is four dead men—just a “slight” case of murder! The way the gangsters die, however, is so laughable that no one in the audience can take their demises seriously. Of equal importance and of tremendous interest to all Britishers is the associate feature “Ourselves Alone” (the English translation of the Irish Sinn Feinn).' John Lodge, John Loder and Antoinette Cellier have the principal character roles. With “A Slight Case Of Murder” on one side of the programme and this thrilling drama on the other, patrons should realize the wonderful value in entertainment being presented at the Majestic 'Theatre beginning tomorrow. The current Cinesound News which will introduce this programme shows topical Australian and New Zealand events including the world championship yachting events on the Auckland harbour and the Newmarket meeting at Melbourne’s Flemington racecourse. Plans are now on view at H. and J. Smith’s Departmental Store, Box Office, Rice’s Majestic confectionery or Majestic Theatre, telephone 738.

ST. JAMES, GORE

“Mother Carey’s Chickens,” which opens at-the St. James Theatre, Gore, tonight, is in marked contrast to madcap comedy. Anne Shirley heads the notable cast, which includes Ruby Keeler, James Ellison, Fay Bainter and Walter Brennan.

REGENT THEATRE, GORE

A stormy romance between a Mexican girl fleeing from a false charge of murder and a Texas ranger sent to arrest her is the basis of George O’Brien’s newest R.K.O. Radio Picture, “The Renegade Ranger,” which begins at the Regent Theatre, Gore, today. The associate feature is “One Wild Night,” a 20th Century-Fox production.