AMUSEMENTS

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1679, 24 October 1925, Page 6

AMUSEMENTS

“THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE.” Arrangements have now been completed for the showing, at the Empire Theatre, Te Awamutu, of the Otorohanga Operatic Society’s third annual production, Gilbert ’and Sullivan’s .delightful comic opera, “The Pirates of Penzance.” It must be 30 years ago that this * world-famous opelra was produced in Te Awamutu by the 'Te Awamutu amateurs, and though, as one of the principals says, “■many years have rolled oveh their heads,” the music and melodies cf this delightful production are still as good as ever. The company .comprises 45 members, and the chorus as also the principals, will be found strong and musical. Booking is at Gifford’s. “ THE SIGN OF THE CACTUS.” Scout and Cloud, Jack Hoxie’s prize horses, are “ camera broke,” to use the term prevalent on the studio lots. Of all the star’s horses, this pair is considered by cowboys and horse-lov-ers everywhere to be as fine specimens as ever worked in pictures. Both are given ample opportunity to do their stuff in some real riding in Hoxie’s latest Blue Streak Westerns. To-night the Empire Theatre will show Hoxie’s very latest, “ The Sign of the Cactus,” and both these equines carry their big master through some fast action in picture. The story concerns a lone rancher who defies a grasping public utilty gang. Helen Holmes, famous for her work in serials a number of years ago, has the feminine lead. Other wellknown film favourites who appear under 'Clifford .Smith’s direction are J. Gordon Russell, Francis Ford, Josef Swickard, Frank Newberg, Jack Pratt, Bobbie Gordon, and Muriel Francis Dana.

“FORTY WINKS.”

Viola Dana, Theodore Roberts, and Raymond Griffith are featured in the principal rples of the Paramount picture, “ Forty Winks.” The picture is an adaptation of the popular stage farce, “ Lord Chumley,” and directed by Paul Iribe and Frank Urson. The production is a very melodramatic mystery-comedy. Roberts, who returned to the screen after an absence of a year in “ Locked Doors,” is cast as a retired admiral in “ Forty Winks.” He fits right into his nautical role because for two and a half years in real ilfe he was Captain Roberts, commanding a schooner plying out of San Francisco. Miss Dana plays his daughter, in love with Chumley, a titled English gentleman. Other big names in the cast include Cyril Chadwick, William Boyd, as the young naval lieutenant who loses a set of coast defence plans and starts all the rumpus, and Anna May Wong. Both Chadwick and Miss Wong have prominent roles in “ Peter Pan.” It is Griffith who furnishes most of the fun in the picture. Remember him in “Changing Husbands,"and with Theodore Roberts, “ the grand old man of the screen,” back with us once more, cigar and all! Here’s a real cast for a picture! “ LOVE’S WILDERNESS.” A new 'Corinne Griffith was introduced to movie-goers by First National when they gave her a part in “ Love’s Wilderness,” her latest picture, which will be screened at tlie Empire Theatre on Wednesday. Corinne’s parts hitherto have been from the frail orchid of the society drawing room type to the frayed rose of poverty, but never before have her scenario writers hurled her against the primitive drudgeries of life. And that is where the surpries lies in “ Love’s Wilderness.” Led by the vagaries of a restless heart, 'Corinne is confronted with the hardships of the Canadian wilds. Miss Griffith is supported by Holmes Herbert and lan Keith.