AMUSEMENTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19807, 24 May 1934, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS

‘T COVER THE WATERFRONT” THRILLING STORY AT REGENT “I Cover the Waterfront,” the United Artists feature which opened at the Regent yesterday has the quite uncommon merit of being a very fine story. It is adapted from one cf the best-written and most widelyread newspaper stories to come from America, and has not been changed enough to be spoiled. There is capital acting in the screen version and some good photography. Altogether it is a reasonably-true-to-life film, and one of real quality as entertainment. “I Cover the Waterfront" shows some passages from the life of a shipping reporter in a large port, how he has to supply i-is paper daily with all sorts of routine news till he is sick to death of doing only that, and how he just cannot clinch the unravelling of a big story that he knows is being played out around the wharves and docks, and how at last he succeeds even in that, by persistent investigation and clever deduction. The film illustrates how in cities where competition is keen, and the slogan must be “get the news first,” a reporter may have to harm and even betray his best friend to get news. But in the film, the reporter’s best friend being a woman, they forgive one another and get married. Ben Lyon, Claudette Colbert and Ernest Torrence head a strong cast. There are some excellent shots of waterfront scenes and some good ones of coastal fishing and coastguard boats at sea, “TOO MUCH HARMONY” BRIGHT FILM AT THE MAJESTIC With tuneful and catchy songs, attractive and ingenious ballets; bright dialogue, with amusing jokes, comical situations, a popular type of story, and a large cast of favourite players, “Too Much Harmony,” which began at the Majestic Theatre yesterday proved lo be a very entertaining film.. There .s nothing in “Too Much Harmony,” which one could claim to have seen in other similar pictures, save in a general way. Some of the songs have preceded the picture, but most of them are to be heard for the first time from the screen. “The Day You Came Along” is a tuneful melody, and “800-boo-boo,” sung in a railway guard's van, is amusing indeed. Bing Crosby, seen previously in “The Big Broadcast” and “College Humour," shares the romantic role with Judith Allen, and their youthfulness is much in their favour. Jack Oakie has a prominent part and is well backed by Skeets Gallagher, with whom a clever acrobatic dance is performed. Lilyan Tashman, famed for “vamp” roles, vamps with all her accustomed sophistication, while Harry Green, as an excitable Jew and the storming producer of musical comedies, raises many a laugh. The trapping of the vamp into breaking. off her engagement, so that her fiance will be free to woo the girl of his heart, makes <i comical and satisfactory climax to the plot. “ROMAN SCANDALS.” “Roman Scandals,” Eddie Cantor’s fourth annual screen musical comedy for Samuel Goldwyn, comes to the

Majestic Theatre on Saturday. Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart, David Manners, Edward Arnold, Veree Teasdale, and this year’s crop of Goldwyn girls are all to be seen in the newest Cantor carnival of fun. George Kauffman and Robert Sherwood wrote “Roman Scandals” as a successor to Eddie’s “The Kid from Spain” of last ‘year. Eddie will be seen as a wistful, browbeaten lad from West Rome, Oklahoma, who finds himself in the Rome of the Caesars and involved in breathtaking adventures among the beautiful slave girls, the thundering chariots and the conspiracies of the imperial court. The plot is a wholly diverting one, and good supports will also be screened.