“AUNT SALLY.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20391, 23 August 1934, Page 3

“AUNT SALLY.”

Bright Musical Picture for Regent. “ Alice in Wonderland,” the talking film version of Lewis Carroll’s famous fantasy, heads the current programme at the Regent Theatre. However gay and tuneful a musical play may be, theatre-goers love to see it well built up and presented as something more than just a series of songs, dances and lavish backgrounds. “ Aunt Sal'.y,” which will come to the Regent Theatre on Saturday, is wellknit, and the story is so cleverly handled that the action and the fun are always in the balance. The brilliant comedy actress, Cicely Courtneidge, is seen at her best in this sparkling show. There is never a dull moment, and there are not many serious ones, though the capture of Sally by a band of gangsters and her later adventures provide a series of dramatic thrills. Then, most exciting of all, comes an Apache dance in deady earnest, with Sally and a gangster in a desperate struggle and the onlookers blissfully unaware that a real fight is on. To see Cicely Courtneidge, with her swift, wiry and catlike movements, and her whip-like face-slapping, and to share with her the pleasure of the final triumph, is something new in films. All through the picture she has the same swiftness and elusiveness, with a gaiety that is peculiarly her own. Apart from the performance of Cicely Courtneidge, there is the elaborate spectacle of a night club, in which fifty of London’s prettiest girls, dancing in many novel combinations, are photographed from a variety of angles, including a striking rainbow effect. On the musical side the film offers catchy numbers by Debroy Somers’s band and songs by several of London’s radio favourites. Box plans at the D.I.C.