“ORDERS IS ORDERS.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20233, 17 February 1934, Page 25 (Supplement)

“ORDERS IS ORDERS.”

Cyril Maude Featured in lan Hay Comedy. Orders is Orders,” a rollicking comedy, starring Cyril Maude (of Grumpy fame), Charlotte Greenwood and James Gleason, opened at the Crystal Palace Theatre to-day. The picture is a clever skit on film-produc-tion methods and military red tape. Imagine the audacity of an American film director descending on a British barracks and practically demanding authority to turn it and its occupants into a motion picture studio, and you will have some idea of the wealth of fun this comedy contains. Then imagine the first reaction of a typically fiery British colonel in command. But the blandishments of the film chief’s fair assistant do their work. The colonel capitulates, with what comically disastrous results to all precedent this delightful show tells, in a welter of quickfire farcical comedy that never pauses and never misses. It is not often that the screen has offered, in this type of entertainment, such remarkable teamwork. Every scene is a feast of fun, and each character is sharply delineated with that clever conception of small detail that marks the true artist. Gleason makes a splendid film director, and Charlotte Greenwood gives a capital performance as his assistant. Cyril Maude plays the colonel, a role which suits his particular style of comedy to perfection. Box plans at The Bristol.