NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 522, 27 November 1928, Page 15

NEW REGENT

TWO BIG PICTURES Melodramatic comedy with a setting of wild, mountainous country, is the latest success of those two well-known comedians, Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton, whose new picture, “The Big Killing,” heads the present programme at the New Regent Theatre. The story tells of the Beagles and the Hicks, who have been! enjoying inter-family feud wars for years, but a short period of peace is interrupted when a romance between young Jim Hicks and the daughter of the house of Beagle is uncovered. The warring is renewed. Old Man Hicks sends his son, George, to town for powder, and George finds a carnival in full swing. He is impressed with the abilities of Powder-Horn Pete and Dead-Eye Han (Beery and Hatton), billed as sharpshooters, although neither could hit an elephant with a guitar. He hires these two pseudo-experts to augment his father’s “army,” without telling them the nature of their employment. Fete and Han are informed by Old Man Hicks that they are to kill some Beagles and they, thinking that he means some dogs, readily agree. They start out alone to find, to their alarm, that the Beagles are seven husky mountaineers, thirsting for the blood of. the imported “killers.” The second big pictorial attraction at the Regent is “The Sawdust Paradise,” introducing Esther Ralston in a new role, that of a circus girl who falls in love with a travelling evangelist. Charming dancing and ballet work by Mr. Maurice Diamond’s Sydney Ballet, together with a bright selection of jazz from the orchestra, makes the present Stage Band show one of the breeziest ever presented. “The Evolution of Terpsichore” by the girls is followed by a clever eccentric acrobatic dance by Freddie Hodges, but the item which takes the fancy of the audience is that given by Miss Stella Lamonde, singer of snappy songs. The satire on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” presented by Mr. Hiamond and Mr. Maurice Guttridge, is a clever piece of work which keeps the audience laughing.