ENTERTAINMENTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4190, 29 May 1939, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

AT THE REGENT. TONIGHT AND TUESDAY. “ SPAWN OF THE NORTH.” In the tangled lives of our inhabitants of a remote Alaskan fishing village is mirrored the heroic struggle for existence H America’s last frontier region in “Spawn of the North,” Paramount’s surging drama of people who live dangerously and die courageously, which arrived in town last Saturday night at the Regent Theatre.

George Raft, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour head an all-star cast in a brilliant screen version of Barrett Willoughby’s famous novel, playing against the sweeping background of Alaska, a land of breathtaking scenery and rugged people, where life often depends on a few feet between a schooner and an iceberg and the law holds only when there are men strong and determined enough to enforce it. Raft and Fonda are excellent in the chief roles, as the two fishing comrades who find themselves on the opposite sides of the law when the inhabitants of the region organise to stamp out the pirates who have been raiding their traps and imperilling their livelihood. Miss Lamour, as the hotelkeeper who loves Raft, plays her biggest dramatic role to date and bears out the predictions of those who said she would ultimately become a top-flight actress. Although Raft and Fonda are arrayed against each other in a life-and-death struggle their old friend-ship-brings them together again after a smashing series of events. When the leader of the fish-pirates moves to kill Fonda in revenge, Raft springs to his friend’s side and, though making the strongest sacrifice in the 1 world, saves Fonda’s life.

AT THE EMPIRE. AGAIN TONIGHT AND TUESDAY. “WILD AND WOOLLY.” That Withers girl is on the loose again out where the West begins, and the West that was never so wild as when Jane and her gun-totin’ grandpop, played by Walter Brennan, create pioneer pandemonium on runaway wheels for her grandest Twentieth Century-Fox comedy, “Wild and Woolly,” which opened on Saturday at the Empire Theatre. Shades of the wild West of Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull are paled and put to shame when Hollywood’s little Miss Mischief goes to town in the Mesa City Pioneer Day Jubilee. Aided and abetted by the best supporting cast she’s ever had, Jane twirls a rope and rides like a saddle-born veteran as she revels in the “Days of ’49” atmosphere recreated for her by grandpop Brennan. Last year’s academy award winner for the best performance of an actor in a supporting role, Brennan heads the cast which includes Pauline Moore, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Jack Searl, Berton Churchill, Douglas Fowley, Robert Wilcox and Douglas Scott.