ENTERTAINMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1934, Page 11

ENTERTAINMENTS

MYSTERY IN “MIDNIGHT CLUB.” NEW PLYMOUTH OPERA HOUSE. His work as a secret service agent gave E. Phillips Oppenheim an inside knowledge which he exploited to full advantage in using the gift of a facile pen in the writing of many thrilling novels. Oppenheim could tell a good story. Paramount, still doing sound work in the American film-producing world, puts Oppenheim on the screen in his best manner in “Midnight Club,” which opened to a packed audience at the New Plymouth Opera House on Saturday. For the society criminal who better could be chosen than the polished, mature Clive Brook? For the American detective playing the part of a thief to win the confidence of the mastermind and expose him who better than George Raft, whose appearance carries him a long way in the underworld? Helen Vinson is the third featured player as a member of the gang of jewel thieves. Neither the thieves, whose mode of operation almost defies detection, nor the detective who seeks to defeat them have matters all their own way, and the audience is kept guessing till the surprising yet logical climax is reached. An excellent selection of supports precedes the main picture. AN ESPIONAGE DRAMA. GOOD REGENT PROGRAMME. Those who like pictures dealing with espionage during war time will enjoy “Madam 1 Spy,” which opened a threenights season at The Regent, New Plymouth, on Saturday. The interest of the picture is well sustained and there are some excellent scenes. Unlike many “spy” pictures, the drama is not carried to incredulous tensity. Nils Asther makes a handsome Austrian intelligence captain dealing with the Austro-Ger-man-Russian sector of Great War operations, who falls in love and marries a rather mysterious and alluring woman in Fay Wray. Thereafter there is portrayed an interesting study of love versus duty with the woman so deeply enmeshed in her inglorious trade that she is unable to withdraw. Noah Beery is an amorous old general and John Miljan is excellent as a secret service / official. There is little comedy relief, but what there • is is good enough to compensate for more of a weaker sort. The supporting programme has a number of interesting “shorts” showing everything from an elephant doing the “cakewalk” to the latest in bird-like aircraft. A Henry Armetta comedy is good, and of wide appeal is one of the “Strange As It Seems” series of weird and wonderful things existing all over the world. EVERYBODY’S THEATRE “PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII.” Writers for the stage from Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw have exploited royalty with a freedom that is possible only in England. Such a subject therefore presents a fascinating and expansive palette for those who paint pictures for the most modem and expressive medium—the screen. This is exemplified in the altogether remarkable and intriguing English picture, “The Private Life of Henry VIII,” screened to large audiences at Everybody’s on Saturday. Its authors, Lajos Biro and Arthur Wimperis, do not pretend to represent the majesty of England in Henry’s time. They have simply seized on the King’s six marriages as a theme, and with bold strokes, and liberal imagination, trace the progress of England’s stoutest monarch through life, with his wives as milestones. Magnificently caparisoned and set in convincing scenes, which take in Hampton Court, the Tower of London, and Hatfield House, the play is dominated by the brilliant performance of Charles Laughton as Henry. This sterling actor so loses himself in the role of the muchwived Merry Monarch that he becomes the King himself—in his truculent independence, his sturdy bestiality, his generous laughter, his fierce amorousness, his loud, breezy humour and his rough wisdom. Yet with all his faults, Mr Laughton makes Henry VIII a great personality; a man to be loved almost as much as to be feared. The role places the actor on the highest pinnacle of screen fame. The programme also includes news, gazettes, and a coloured .Disney cartoon, “A Night Before Christmas,” in which the toys, at the behest of Santa Claus, hold high carnival. Screenings will be repeated twice daily until Wednesday next,