AMUSEMENTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20891, 22 November 1937, Page 13

AMUSEMENTS

FINE ENGLISH COMEDY "TAKE MY TTP” Excellent comedy is provided by the well-known English entertainers Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge in “Take My Tip,” which is now at the State. They are cast as George and Hattie, Lord and Lady Pilkington, who are the victims of a confidence trick. George is persuaded by a shady financier named Buchan to purchase a nonexistent oil well, for £15,000 which is the entire fortune of the Pilkingtons. Buchan, of course, disappears, and the couple are left to face a somewhat dismal future. However, a former butler in their household named Paradine turns up. proves to be the owner of a palatial hotel in Dalmatia, and offers them both positions there. They are obliged to accept, and Hattie—who was formerly a musical comedy actress —indulges her former talents and becomes a wealthy coffee heiress, hostess at the hotel, and George performs the job of an ingratiating head waiter. While they are here in this guise, Buchan turns up and tries to put over his oil-well story on the “Countess” in a very amusing scene wherein George quite the jealous husband, pops in and out of the room with disconcerting results. At this point Hattie and George decide to get their own back from tiffs adventurer and the rest of the film depicts the adventures they have in playing a trick, similar to his own, upon him and recovering their fortune. Jack Hulbert is his charming, inimitable self and introduces a number of really clever dances; in one of these he is partnered by Cicely with screamingly disastrous results.

GREAT FIGHT SCENES “KID GALAHAD” A stirring story of the boxing world, full of tense drama, but chiefly remarkable for the authenticity of its fight sequences, is “Kid Galahad,” which is at the Regent. Edward G. Robinson is a boxing manager who takes an unknown bellhop, Wayne Morris, and builds him for the championship against a drinking champ, managed by Humphrey Bogart, a detested rival. But when Wayne falls in love with Robinson’s young sister while Bette Davis—Robinson’s girl—loves Wayne, the. manager, turns menacing and determines to be revenged by having Morris well thrashed. However, owing to appeals made to him by both girls, Robinson relents at the last moment. Both Robinson and Bette Davis give top-nitch presentations, each acting with a restraint that is more impressive than over-elaboration. Jane Bryan shows effectively as the ingenue in a most promising performance, and Soledad Jiminez as Robinson’s Italian mother is excellent. Harry Care, comes out well as the boxing trainer. Joe Cunningham, Ben Welden, Joseph Crehan, George Blake, William Hahde and others are in the cast. Fadeout comes on the shooting of both Bogart and Robinson after Wayne licks the heavyweight champion. the match Robinson had planned revengefully to be his downfall, and had gambled heavily on his opponent while leading the Bogart gang to believe their man would win. When he doe: not, owing to Robinson’s change of tactics for his protege halfway through the fight, Bogart in a cold rage goes out to get his enemy. The scene in the dressing room at the stadium is fraught with suspenseful thrills.

AN ARRESTING FILM “THE ROAD BACK” "The Road Back,” the featured film on the new programme at the Majestic Theatre, cannot fail to make a deep impression on all who see it no matter whether it is regarded merely as a good entertainment, a remarkable example of filmcraft, or a social document. “The Road Back” is not a war film in the accepted sense of the word, although it is a logical sequel to “All Quiet on the Western Front," but it arises out of the war and carries in its story a more forceful message for to-day than would any screen document which set out merely to portray the horrors of actual conflict. The film opens on the Western Front, where mere schoolboys are fighting the last days of the war. They do not know it is about to end, but end it does with an Armistice that follows a senseless last charge in which the striplings kill and are killed. Memorable are the scenes which follow the announcement of the cessation of hostilities. There is in these sequences an authenticity of emotion which is also to be noted throughout the film. One feels instinctively that these are natural human reactions. Following the mad excitement, there commences the long bewildering process of disillusionment. Tlie soldiers have forgotten that their homes have been changed even as their own lives have been altered The story is general rather than particular, but the leading thread of it centres round the love of one of these youthful veterans for his boyhood sweetheart, who has become selfish and cynical. She trifles with him and exploits a war profiteer’s infatuation for her own benefit. In desperation, her lover shoots the man in a cafe and is placed on trial. The court scenes are highly dramatic. The lad is convicted, but not before his war comrades speak on his behalf, voicing the strange code of manners and morals which their experiences have taught them. Performance honours are amazingly equal. John King distinguishes himself as the jilted lover. Richard Cromwell has a typical role which he fills completely, and Andy Devine provides characteristic comic relief, with assistance from Slim Summerville. On the feminine side honours go to Barbara Read, one of the “Three Smart Girls,” and Louise Fazenda, a veteran of the screen. All the characters are humanly interesting and delightful in the comedy, pathos and tragedy of their everyday lives.