ENTERTAINMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, 20 October 1933, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

EVERYBODY’S TO-DAY. “THAT NIGHT IN LONDON.” “That Night in London,” the enjoyable British production featuring Robert Donat and Pearl Argyle will be finally presented at Everybody’s to-day at 2 and 7.45 p.m. There is a diversified supporting programme. “Their Night Out,” a devil-may-care comedy, comes to Everybody’s, New Plymouth, to-morrow at 2 and 7.45 p.m. It’s laughter will tickle the stoutest soberside; shake the midriff of any despair. But the story’s chief purpose is to make the absurdity plausible, and it does that splendidly; but it is the players who will have exhilarated you, having been affected themselves by the situations. Claude Hulbert is the “absent” business man with the surprised vacant face, bereft of brains, but with explanatory hands and dancing, acrobatic feet. He becomes exuberantly stupid in his debauches, and does things with his feet. Renee Houston begins as a pure young woman from Aberdeen, but ends by becoming a night club queen. She has a militant umbrella and indignant eyebrows, and a delicious accent. She visits a night’ club and orders milk, and wears a “party” dress. There is a facetious but sympathetic father-in-law to our bemused business man, ( and a critical mother-in-law, and a beautiful wife, and a flat-footed butler, and marital difficulties, and all sorts of things, and rollicking laughter.

REGENT THEATRE. FAMILY NIGHT TO-NIGHT. “His Lordship,” starring Jerry Vemo, and “Hallelujah, I’m a Tramp,” starring Al. Jolson, Madge Evans and Frank Morgan, will both be finally screened at the Regent Theatre, New Plymouth, tonight. The supporting programme will include the penultimate chapter of “Heroes of the West.” With a cast that combines the foremost in comedy and character performances, “Arizona to Broadway,” the new Fox production which opens at The Regent to-morrow at 2 and 7.45 p.m., promises to be one of the outstanding films of the current season. It has James Dunn in a new type of role—that of a confidence man operating at a western carnival. And he reveals abilities hitherto unsuspected by his tremendous following. Joan Bennett is his leading lady, and proves that her absence from the screen, even for a short period of a few months, is enough to make her missed. Herbert Mundin, in the part of ' a typical southern proprietor of a circus is perfect and hilarious. The excellent cast in support of the featured players includes Sammy Cohen, Theodore Von Eltz, Merna Kennedy, Earle Foxe, David Wengren and Walter Catlett. James Tinling’s direction has a delightfully, light touch.

A TOUCH OF EDGAR WALLACE.

MURDER DRAMA AT OPERA HOUSE.

Take an old English castle, with the wind and rain sweeping in eerie blasts, equip it with a haunted room in which those who spend a night never come out alive, and the stage is set for the fascinating murder mystery “The Secret of the Blue Room,” which opened a twonight season at the New Plymouth Opera House last night. Door handles that turn unaccountably, shots that ring out in the night, a man that disappears completely and a corpse dragged from the fatal room all combine to make one of the intriguing dramas imaginable. Suspicion is thrown on character after character, but there will be few indeed in the audience who solve the riddle before the final surprising denouement. “The Secret of the Blue Room” can be recommended as a first-class thriller.

‘STRANGE INTERLUDE’ TO-MORROW

To-morrow afternoon and evening the Opera House will present “Strange Interlude,” one of the most daring and remarkable films ever screened. Eugene O’Neill’s remarkable Pulitzer Prize play, “Strange Interlude,” with its spoken secret thoughts, was a great stage success, and it has been brought to the screen even more effectively. A brilliant array of talent makes the most of an emotional drama which demands the utmost in histrionic ability. But apart from a magnificent cast, the film succeeds by the introduction of one of the most startling and novel experiments since the advent of the audible screen. In place of the asides which the narrow confines of the stage made necessary, the innermost thoughts of the characters come from the screen without visual lip movement. Directly the character has said what convention and ordinary good manners urge him to say, his actual thoughts in the circumstances are heard by the audience. The filmgoer thus plays eavesdropper to the actors. It is an unusual and exciting experience. “Strange Interlude” is a striking play, dealing frankly with a vital problem, and the manner in which it is presented holds the tense interest of the audience throughout. Norma Shearer plays the leading role. Patrons are asked to note that owing to the Opera House being engaged next week “Strange Interlude” will be presented for two nights only. INGLEWOOD TALKIES. “THEY JUST HAD TO GET MARRIED” You’ll laugh so heartily that you’ll cry when you see “They Just Had to Get Married,” the Universal comedy which has been hailed as the funniest motion picture in years. It comes to the Inglewood Theatre to-night and to-mor-row, with its two leading roles played by the screen’s greatest man-and-women comedy team—Slim Summerville and Zasu Pitts. Here is a picture which runs the whole gamut of comedy, from biting satire to riotous farce, with a fast pace which at times will have you lit-

erally holding on to the arms of your seat, thrilled with dangerous exploits; at the same time you are shrieking with laughter. “They Just Had to Get Married” is a comedy classic. The cast appearing in support of Summerville and Miss Pitts includes Roland Young, Verree Teasdale, Fifi D’Orsay and many other popular screen players. If you fail to see this, you are denying yourself the greatest comedy treat in years. Don’t miss it!

NEW THEATRE, OPUNAKE. “THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER.” Six infant devil fish died for art and were buried with full Hollywood, honours immediately after the completion of their sequence in “The Penguin Pool Murder,” to be screened at the New Theatre, Opunake, to-night and to-mor-row. The glaring lights used to photograph them proved fatal despite all precautions. They lived long enough, however, to provide the thrill intended. The fish were secured near Balboa, California, for some thrilling sequences in the .film. They were transported the studio in huge glass tanks containing ocean water. When the picture cast first saw the octopi its members intended to adopt them as piscatorial pets after the film was made. Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Robert Armstrong, Mae Ciarke and Donald Cook are featured in the leading roles of “The Penguin Pool Murder.” The tale is a comedy-mystery, with Miss Oliver and Gleason in the roles of a pair of comic detectives who solve the amazing murder of a man whose dead body is discovered in the penguin's tank in the Aquarium.