“TALKIE” ENTERTAINMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1929, Page 12

“TALKIE” ENTERTAINMENT

NEW MENJOU DISCOVERED. Adolphe Menjou, the immaculate French screen actor, has long been familiar, but probably few of the vast moving picture public knew he was an accomplished pianist, singer and elocutionist. In his first talking picture, “Fashions in Love,” he is all of those and he does all three remarkably well. He delighted the audience' at the People’s, New' Plymouth, on Saturday night. In addition he was irresistible to the ladies—scores of them —and thereby hung the whole tale. After each concert, and between, times, Menjou was literally besieged by fashionable women • who passionately loved “his music.” One even went so far as to accompany him to his mountain cabin —she loved his music so. No matter that she was married to Dr. Martin—Menjou was married, too, to a beautiful and accomplished woman who understood him. She deceived her. husband and he deceived his wife, and off they went to the picturesque mountain lodge. After they had gone Dr. Martin and Mrs. Menjou conferred, and they, too, left for the mountain. All this and the events that follow at the cabin provided dramatic incidents of which full adva,utage was taken to make the whole picture a most entertaining one. Menjou, of course, is a consummate actor, and he is always the central, dominating feature of the play. His accent is French and pleasing, and he knows how to use it. Most of the other voices are English and cultured; their reproduction is excellent. Even more important to the modern programme than was the case with the silent film are the “supports.” Highly entertaining “shorts” are now appearing in abundance and are making the programmes much more to the public liking. The supports that accompany “Fashions in Love” are of high class. The Harmony Boys are masters of their vaudeville art. For sheer, hearty merriment the British De Forest comedy “Acci-dental Treatment,” wbuld be hard to excel; two raw amateurs at large in a dental parlour are simply asking for trouble. In finding that; trouble they provide the public with many an unrestrained laugh. “A Bird in the Hand,” a comedydrama featurette, is cleverly done, and provides some novel and exceedingly amusing situations. A Gazette completes a delightful programme that should draw big houses to the People’s during the remainder of the season.