AROUND THE THEATRES

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

AROUND THE THEATRES

STOAT TO SEE AT NEW PLYMOUTH. EVERYBODY’S THEATRE. To-day, Monday and Tuesday, “Ma1 darnA Du Barry,” Dolores Del Rio, Reginald Owen. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, "Danny Boy,” Ronnie Hepworth, ‘ Dorothy Dixon, Cyril Ritchard. Next Saturday, “Blossom Time,” Richard Tauber. REGENT THEATRE. To-day, Monday and Tuesday, “Para- • chute Jumper,” Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. and Bette Davis, and “Central 1 Park,” Joan Blondell. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Ladies Should Listen,” Cary Grant,: Everett Horton. Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. “Son of Kong,” Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack and “Long Lost Father,” John Barrymoore, Helen Chandler, Donald Cook. . _ \ , OPERA HOUSE. . ' '• '; 1 ''’ /: ■' ; To-day, Monday and Tuesday, “The '-World Moves On,” Madeleine -Carroll, Franchot Tone. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, “His Greatest Gamble,” Richard Dix, Dorothy Wilson. Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, “A . Cup of . Kindness,” Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn. DIFFICULT ROLE NE’ER-DO-WELL TURNS HERO. In his latest picture, Richard Dix eslays the most, difficult role of his career is a ne’er-do-well father who turns kero, and in a sensational manner entures his daughter’s happiness after it leems that she is doomed to a life of suppressed hopes. The screen story RKO-Radio’s “His Greatest Gamble," which comes to the New Plymouth Opera House on Wednesday pictures Dix as . gambler devoted to eight-year-old Alice, but he is separated from her when he unintentionally causes a death, which sends him to jail for 15 years.' Under the heartless custody of a social-mad mother, Alice evolves into a wishy-washy debutante in ten years. When the mother menaces the girl’s romance with a worthy young man, her father sheds the law’s fetters to come to her aid. He accomplishes her rescue in a powerful and sympathetic climax. Dorothy Wilson, Bruce Cabot, Erin O’Brien-Moore and Edith Fellows are featured. John Robertson directed.

LONG LOST FATHER . ATONEMENT FOR NEGLECT. ' John Barrymore has the leading role in "Long Lost Father,” featuring on a double-bill programme at the Regent, New Plymouth, on Saturday. Based on a novel by G. B. Stem the picture traces a father’s conflict with his daughter. Carl Relish*, a suave London night dub manager, and Lindsay Lane, a dancer, meet for the first time in 20 years, although they are father and daughter, when she comes to entertain in his establishment. Lindsay has always nurse/ .a bitter hatred for her father,‘ who left her in her infancy when he deserted her mother, and the abhorrence arises now even more intensely. Carl tries to assume his responsibilities as a parent, but Lindsay is adamant to his approach. She finds greater enjoyment in travelling with a fast set until she becomes involved in the theft of a sum of money. It develops that she must go to prison unless there is aid forthcoming from her father. Carl, helps her by raising the money by means of a confidence-trick, and then steps out of her life, having atoned for his past neglect and won her regard at last. Helen Chandler, Donald Cook, John Barrymoore, Alan Mowbray and Natalie Moorhead do the bulk of the acting. ' SURPRISE OF SEASON NEW FACET OF CARY GRANT. One of this season’s surprises of the screen is Paramount’s “Ladies Should Listen,” a bubbling, Continental comedy in which Cary Grant reveals a new facet of his versatility. The film will open at the Regent, New Plymouth, on Wednesday. The story is one of complicated situations in which a young Parisian man-about-town finds himself with an option on a nitrate -concession .on his hands plus one of his many sweethearts who, with her husband, is trying to rob him of the concession. The telephone operator in his hotel is also in love with him, and through the medium of the switchboard tries to straighten out his affairs, only to succeed in complicating them still further until happy chance helps to resolve them. Everett Horton, Frances Drake, Charles Ray and Nydia Westman feature in this film which was. directed by Frank Tuttle. - "LONDONDERRY AIR” FAMOUS MELODY THEME SONG. It was a nimble mind which envisaged the film possibilities of a story linking up with the world famous “Londonderry Air,” more popularly known in its ballad form of “Danny Boy.” The film, opening at Everybody’s Theatre, New Plymouth, on Wednesday, fully exploits this haunting little melody, weaving round it a welter of song and sentiment, comedy, and cabaret, and a moving blend of juvenile appeal and stricken wifehood 'Which is delightful. The story ■should assure the showman of its entertaining potentialities. There is an appealing blend of pathos and humour in the earlier scenes where the father and the boy are flung out of the cheap garret where they were at first befriended and in the dosshouse scenes where a despotic but kindly boss runs a rigid rule over his tattered clients. Then there is A powerful note of sentiment which runs throughout, alternate with telling touches of mother love and child appeal. The development moves surely forward to the well-staged climax of New York revelry. The film is domestic drama—a human story of a truant mother’s quest for husband and child and eventual success.