TOWN HALL TALKIES

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3210, 22 September 1934, Page 5

TOWN HALL TALKIES

JESSIE MATTHEWS IN "EVERGREEN" ROMANCE OF GAY NINETIES The romantic musical comedy, "Evergreen," based on C. B. Coehran's successful stage production of a few years ago, will be the feature at the Town Hall Theatre to-night. Jessie Matthews plays the role she brilliantly created in the stage production, investing it with all her appealing charm and revealing a distinct flair for the dramatic, and she is given'every opportunity that : piquant situations and charming musical numbers can provide. "Evergreen" marks the return to the screen of Betty Balfour, of all British stars the most idolised in the concluding days of the ; silent film. The story covers a period of 30 years, and tells of the impersonation by her daughter of a famous actress who had abandoned her career in tha midst of her triumphs many years before, owing to her blackmailing lover. The ensuing complications disclose a rich field of romantic, dramatic and comic incidents. A recreation of the old music hall days provides an interesting prologue to an elaborate exposition of modern stagecraft, neatly rounded off with straight-forward dialogue and a hint of drama necessary to preserve an adequate balance. Victor Saville, the ' producer, with characteristic skill, has got right away from the flimsiness of ordinary musical comedy. From his ■' hands the big pro-. auction comes as a strongly realistic series of features woven into the vivid pattern of the story.' For instance, a fantastic Machine Age sotting has, for one feature, a munition .factory in which huge Shells, each carrying a beautiful girl in modernistic, uniform of black satin, with golden belt, greaves, anklets and winged helmet move slowly into a great furnace. Back they come again" *Vs the worshippers of the Machine and. finally the sacrifice—seven chosen beauties in

shimmering white -stand beneath st: great steam hammer as it crashes down. Again, he provides a spectacular musical sequence in the form of a review of dance fashions. Incidental to the climax of the plot is a wild romance of the rhumba by Jessie Matthews. .... -. In "Evergreen" Saville has demonstrated in half a dozen ways how possible it is to make more effective us» of a dancing chorus than in mere pos-. ing and geometric evolutions. Moreover, he makes so much of the them© in all its comic and dramatic, bearings and- creates an atmosphere so convincing as to. give the production a great deal of originality—a quality which is rare in this; class of which is characteristic, of all Saville's work. . ? , . . Sonnie Hale and a new-comer to screen work, Barry Mackay, are also in the cast of " Evergreen,/ * which will also bo screened on Monday nightMatinees will be held each afternOOffl at 2 p.m." /'■:■' , •' -"-V" -' • *£ ,':/ -