ENTERTAINMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1933, Page 2

ENTERTAINMENTS

NEW PLYMOUTH OPERA HOUSE. “IF I HAD A MILLION.” “If I Had a Million,” which commences at the New Plymouth Opera House tonight for two nights and one matinee only, tells the story of an eccentric millionaire, John Glidden (Richard Benuett) who decides to distribute his money before he dies. He gives it aWay, a million dollars at a time, to as oddly assorted, a collection of humanity as can be imagined. The use to which each of the recipients puts his or her million forms a tensely dramatic story. Tire film is, moreover, the background for a whole gallery of portraits, each a distinctly fine characterisation. Tire Glidden of Bennett is particularly good, but there are also unforgettable portrayals by Wynne Gibson as Mabel Smith; Charles Ruggles as Henry Peabody, a timid little clerk whoso sole ambition has always been to own a rabbit farm; Mary Boland as his wife; George Raft as Eddie Jackson, forger; Gary Cooper, Jack Oakie and Roscoe Karns as three marines; Gene Raymond as a boy condemned to death; Frances Dee as his wife; Alison Skipwortlras a former vaudeville performer; W. C. Fields as a former juggler; and May Robso.i as a belligerent inmate of an old women s home, who uses her million dollars to run a similar home the way she believes it should be run. The magnitude of th a story and the importance of each of the many characters made necessary the assembling of a cast of such brilliance. Both players and the story make “If I Had a Million” the type of talkie that must be seen.

EVERYBODY’S—ALL BRITISH. "THE FLYING SQUAD." Edgar Wallace’s stories have already contributed several thrilling films for the screen, but there have been none more full of stirring incident than “The Flying Squad,” the British melodrama which is now showing twice daily at Everybody’s Theatre, New Plymouth. This time the insidious traffic in drugs was chosen by Edgar Wallace as the theme around which to weave his baffling plots and counter-plots. In selecting “The Flying Squad,” Scotland Yard’s most brilliant detachment, Mr. Wallace was given abundant material for constructing a thrilling story, and his knowledge of police methods unknown to the general public, has made the resultant . picture even more enthralling. The story is based on the machinations of an International band of criminals who have been able to evolve a system of drug distribution which has baffled the police for years. Utterly unscrupulous in their methods, they have descended even to‘murder in their efforts to escape detection, and it is a murder which eventually put the mobile force of Scotland Yard on to their trail. To reveale the story of an Edgar Wallace film is to spoil the enjoyyment, but it is sufficient to say there is not a dull moment in the film from the time the action commences to the final unexpected denouement. The cast is headed by Harold Huth, who made his talking picture debut in “The, Outsider,” and gave a characterisation which was admitted to be one of the best emanating from an English studio. He gives another fine portrayal in this film, and is ably assisted by a cast of players who are prominent on the English stage. The subordinate programme includes Pathe British news and “Hotel Splendide,” an amusing British comedy-drama starring Jerry Verno, the Cockney comedian.

THE REGENT THEATRE.

“WHITE ZOMBIE." “White Zombie,’’ which commenced a Season at The Regent Theatre, New Plymouth, last night before a crowded audience, is a picture that outrivals Dracula and its ilk, a picture that holds an audience spell-bound by the weirdness of its conception, its wonderfully effective photography, and the extraordinary demands upon the acting skill of its characters that it makes. The very opening contains the element of fear and many of the audience titter —a little nervously mayhap. Then the gripping realism of the arch-fiend who steals the mind and soul of a beautiful woman develops, w>th a noteworthy minimum of dialogue, but with a telling effect which banishes all thought of laughter, nervous or otherwise., The plot must not be disclosed; it must be watched by the individual as it develops under the mesmeric power and the chemical skill of that great actor Bela Lugosi, whose latest role is the greatest of all the vehicles for his weird personality. Madge Bellamy, personating a woman living, yet dead, has a most difficult task, where any slightest slip would ruin the stark conviction of the whole theme. Her soulless, wili-less creature, maintains, it thoroughly, and in relief there comes the most genuinely human medical missionary, a gem of a study, who provides the final touch of humour which brings relief. ‘White Zombie” is preceded by “Self-Made Lady,” an entertaining British production starring Heather Angel, England’s Janet Gaynor.