ENTERTAINMENTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3939, 13 August 1937, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

REGENT THEATRE. AGAIN TO-NIGHT. "GIRL OVERBOARD.” Screen entertainment reached a new height in vivid, exciting realism vesterday at the Regent Theatre, when “Girl Overboard!" Universal’s thrill packed drama of a ship fire on the high seas, began a two day run. Gloria Stuart and Walter Pidgeon play the leading roles. Swiftly paced, the ship fire scenes possess a gripping quality. A touching romance between the principals and clever comedy, provided by Hobart Cavanaugh, Jack Smart and Gerald Oliver Smith, enliven the production. Miss Stuart is the unwilling recipient of the attentions of the wealthy proprietor of an exclusive New York gown shop. When she seeks to escape from his influence by sailing for China, he comes aboard the ship and uses threats in an effort to force her to remain in Manhattan. Just before the ship sails, the man is murdered under mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile a disastrous fire creaks out aboard the liner. Miss Stuart, one of the survivors, returns to shore and becomes a fugitive from justice. Walter Pidgeon enters the situation when, despite the fact that he is the District Attorney charged with the duty of prosecuting her, he shelters her in his home. COMMENCING SATURDAY. "PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND.” Snatched from the shadow of the noose, he was sent to an isiand hell to suffer an agony worse than death! Telling the true story of the most tragic figure in American history, 20th Century’s “The Prisoner of Shark Island” comes to-morrow to the Regent Theatre, starring Warner Baxter with Gloria Stuart and a supporting cast of over one thousand. Dipping into the hectic days following the close of the Civil War, the picture depicts the assassination of Lin coin and the flight of his assassin to the country home of Baxter, a doctor. For the unintentional crime of setting the broken leg of a man about whom he knew nothing, Baxter is ar rested. In the hysteria that follows, Baxter is sentenced to life imprisonment at the dreaded Federal prison on

the Dry Tortugas. In stark, terrifying fashion the picture reveals the physical and spiritual agonies of this unjustly sentenced man, his desperate attempt at escape, his courage under the brutal degradation of prison life. EMPIRE THEATRE. COMMENCING TO-NIGHT. “SINNER TAKE ALL.” It is an unusual story that unfolds on the screen of the Empire Theatre, in the picture “Sinner Take All,” which opens to-night for an engagement of three days. The process of blending metropolitan mystery, with romance in the high spots and comedy in the newspaper world, is accomplished with remarkable finesse. Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, “Sinner Take All” presents the ace trio of Bruce Cabot, Margaret Lindsay and Joseph Calleia in top-notch dramatic roles. Cabot, as a former newspaper man turned lawyer, gives a fine performance; Miss Lindsay scores as the daughter of a millionaire publisher who is mysteriously murdered, and Calleia offers another of his excellent “menace” portrayals. "Sinner Take All” is based on the popular novel by Whitman Chambers. The picture was directed by Errol Taggart, with Lucien Hubbard and Sam Marx, both ex-newspaper men, producing. The story concerns a millionaire publisher and his family who are threatened with death from a source of complete mystery. He and two sons are killed. A reporter who has become a lawyer returns to his craft and eventually apprehends the killer and saves the life of the publisher’s daughter with whom- he is in love.