STRAUSS OPERETTA.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20239, 24 February 1934, Page 25 (Supplement)

STRAUSS OPERETTA.

Delightful Melodies in “ Waltz Time.” “ Waltz Time ”, a screen operetta featuring the glorious melodies of Johann Strauss, began at the Regent Theatre to-day. It is an adaptation by A. P. Herbert of “ Die Fledermaus” (“The Bat”), and the original compositions of the great waltz master are intact in this celluloid presentation. The story opens amid the gaiety and revelry of a carnival in Vienna, and that high note of joy is never lost during the entire screening of the picture. Life, laughter and love go hand in hand in this light operetta that will thrill all who are privileged to see it. Evelyn Laye, stage idol of New York and London—who played to brilliant success in the New York season of “Bitter Sweet”— is starred. This is not her first talking picture, but it is the first film in which her exquisite charm and attractive personality have been adequately seen. Jay Laurier, another English stage favourite, is responsible for much of the excellent comedy in which the production abounds, and two other notables in the cast are Fritz Schulz and Gina Malo. Schulz, a German tenor, portrays Evelyn Laye’s husband and Gina Malo appears in the role of a cosmopolitan young lady who acts as the star’s maid. Also on the new programme at theRegent is a film entitled “His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales ”. Because this is an effort that at a timely moment brings to every British

subject a reminder of the greatness and tradition of the British Empire, and because it illustrates in vivid sequence the most popular personality in the world, this screen record of the life of the Prince of Wales is one that should hold powerful attraction for everybody. Box plans at The Bristol.