AMUSEMENTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18613, 8 July 1930, Page 12

AMUSEMENTS.

royal' theatre. “POINTED HEELS.” A sparkling story of the ups and downs of show life, “Pointed Heels,” opened at the Royal Theatre last night. William Powell and Fay Wray have the leading roles, and these two favourites make an instant appeal as a millionaire producer and his favourite leading lady respectively. Others of importance in the cast are Helen Kane and Richard Gallagher. William Powell, wealthy theatrical producer, and Eugene Pallette, his dance director, are whipping a new musical comedy into shape when Fay Wray, one of the show girls, quits the production to marry Phillips Holmes, a young composer. Holmes’s wealthy mother stops his allowance, and the young couple are forced to live in a modest flat, where Phil tries to continue his writing in symphony. Powell gives Fay her old job in the chorus. Fay gets little sympathy from her brother, Richard “Skeets” Gallagher, and his wife, Helen Kane, vaudeville song and dance team, who scorn Phil’s artistic musical endeavours. Their taunts force him to write a popular number for them. Powell pays a visit to the apartment of Fay and Phil. He is interested in Fay, and Phil likes him immensely. During his visit “Skeets” and Helen arrive, and persuade Powell to be th rancial backer of a revue in which / and Fay will have parts. While tho . evue is in rehearsal Powell persuades Phil that he is hurting his wife’s chances for stage success. Then he makes Fay believe, through suave suggestion, that she is hampering Phil’s chances for musical accomplishment, and that she should allow him to return to his mother and his studies in Europe. Fay decides then, to leave Phil. The show is a success. Phil is in the audience, but his boat sails at midnight. He sees that his song is the melody hit of the show, and Fay discovers that she cannot be without her young composer-husband. She tells Powell to send for Phil, and the two are happily re-united. A particularly good variety of short features is shown, the “Hawaiian Love Call,” which is filmed in technicolour, being a very charming number. The humorous side of the programme is contained in a new talking cartoon, “The Radio Riot,” and a laughable comedy, “Scrappily Married,” while George Fawcett is featured in “The One Man Re-Union.”

MAJESTIC TIIEATR “ SALLY.” The musical comedy of the stage for the time, at least, appears to have become a thing of the past. The reason for this it is not necessary to go far to seek. The talking picture, in addition to possessing practically all the qualities of the stage production, enables the producer to assemble a cast such as no travelling show could hope to maintain, and the general staging and costuming can be carried out on a scale far exceeding anything which could be achieved on the stage. It is, therefore, not strange that “Sally” should prove to be an even greater success as a film than as a play. Marilyn Miller, in the title role of Sally, is certainly one of the features of the evening’s entertainment. Her performance is simple, restrained, and I quietly keyed, and her own charming I personality and exquisite appearance are mere additional pleasures. “Sally” is an all-technicolour First National and Vitaphone picture, all-dialogue, and with singing and dancing. It brings Miss Miller to the screen for the first time, and presents the charming star in the greatest role she ever played—that of the little waitress who becomes premiere danseuse of the Follies. A cast of unusual excellence is seen in support of Miss Miller. Alexander Gray, who sang the prinI cipal role in the eastern company of “The Desert Song,” is seen opposite the star. Three famous comedians are included in the cast, Joe E. Brown in the role made famous by Leon Errol on the stage, T. Roy Barnes and Ford Sterling. Pert Kelton, of the Ziegfeld “Rio Rita” company, has the ingenue lead, and others in the cast are Maude Turner Gorgon, Jack Duffy, E. J. Ratcliff e. Under the personal direction of Albertina Rasch, famous dance teacher, the Albertina Rasch ballet girls danced before cameras and microphones for “Sally.” The thirty-six girls of this famous ballet appear in the spectacular theatre sequences, along with seventy-two First National contract dancers and several scores of show girls. A Vitaphone orchestra of 110 played the ballet music, under the direction of Leo Forbenstein.