AMUSEMENTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20795, 2 August 1937, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

"CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA" ACTION AND MYSTERY AT STATE A madman s vengeance strikes two young lovers and Charlie Chan faces the most baffling mystery of his career in “Charlie Chan at the Opera,” the new Twentieth Century-Fox picture now at the State. Warner Oland plays the crafty Chinese detective, with Boris Karloff co-starred as his implacable foe. With Keye Luke, Charlotte Henry, Thomas Beck and Margaret Irving featured, the film starts off in a roar of high tension excitement that reaches a spine-tingling climax to a crescendo of thrilling events. Karloff, a hopeless maniac, is an inmate of an insane asylum, spending his time singing forgotten arias from the days when he was a famous opera star. The world believes that Karloff perished to a theatre fire. His memory restored by the shock of seeing his wife’s picture in a newspaper, but his mind still warped, Karloff, in a madman’s fury, overpowers his guard and escapes. The guard dies from the attack and Chan is called into the case. The photograph in the newspaper provides a clue that leads Chan to the opera, with his son, Keye Luke, accompanying him. In an amazing series of terrifying adventures, Chan unmasks the man who has usurped the baritone’s role of Mephistopheles, but not before two more atrocious murders are committed. "HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT” GAY COMEDY AT REGENT "History is Made at Night,” now showing at the Regent Theatre, has everything that makes for stirring drama and first-class entertainment. The story moves with a smooth conviction through incident after thrilling incident to a splendid and wellbalanced climax. It has humour, pathos, drama and music, and sparkles with some really first-class acting. As Paul, the urbane, efficient head-waiter of the popular Parisian cafe, Charles Boyer excels even his usual high standard. Playing opposite him as the wife of a strangely jealous and halfinsane shipping magnate, Jean Arthur is no less appealing than she was as "Calamity Jane” in “The Plainsman.” A really brilliant character portrayed is that of Coiin Clive as Vail, the shipping magnate. His is a difficult part. He has to portray a man who. his love for a woman turned to hatred through unfounded jealousy and suspicion, yet seeks to hold her to him, and who commits even murder to achieve this end. A fourth actor who, despite the excellence of the others, almost steals the show, is Leo Carrillo, an old favourite, who is cast as Paul's henchman, the world’s greatest chef. "AREN’T MEN BEASTS” LAUGHTER SPECIAL AT MAJESTIC One of the most successful stage farces of recent times has been made into an unbelievably funny screen comedy, with Robertson Hare and Alfred Drayton to their original stage roles, also heading the screen cast. "Aren’t Men Beasts" is the title of the year’s greatest laugh cure, London’s record-breaking long-run comedy of a million laughs, at present at the Majestic. Robertson Hare is seen in his funniest role to date, as a little dentist who, through no fault of his own, finds himself involved in a scandal with a beautiful mysterious foreign lady. Alfred Drayton, celebrated stage actor, is co-starred with Hare, and together they prove to be the funniest comedy team since Stan Laurel met Oliver Hardy. His mannerisms and his bullying of the pathetically downtrodden Hare, is comedy of the most brilliant kind. Hare, too, long recognised as one of the screen’s leading comics, has found in Drayton his ideal screen partner. The spectacle of Hare escaping from the police dressed as a woman—hidden in the grandfather clock, where he has been hastily pushed by Drayton—running out through fire escapes—and selling tomatoes to a coster disguise, which, no matter how he tries, will not camouflage his voice, are just a few of the hilarious situations in this uproarious comedy farce. Imagine, also, the limitless laughs when Billy Milton, as Hare's son, has to establish a lady’s identity by means of a mole. Unfortunately for Billy, there are three ladies in the case, and which one has the mole.