ENTERTAINMENTS

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3267, 13 December 1932, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

EMPIRE THEATRE.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY. "ALMOST A DIVORCE." "Almost a Divorce," the bright, joyous comedy of marital mix-ups and compromising situations, at the Empire Theatre, is a still further proof that farce and broad comedy represent the natural mediums of expression for British actors and actresses, playwrights and movie producers. The picture abounds in honest-to-goodness laughs, and it is certainly this kind of champagne entertainment that is going to lift us out of the trough of despondency- into which many of us have'slipped. Sydney Howard and Nelson Keys, comedy merchants of the unforgettable "Splinters," go to work again with a will and the fun flows along gathering force as it goes, until it wells up and threatens to engulf the onlooker with its hilarity and spontaneous appeal. Plot matters but little in a film of this nature, and this one makes no stronger claims to power than a thousand other comedies have done that have gone before it. But who cares about, that, anyway? Here we have Sydney Howard, Nelson Keys, a charming heroine that is new to us, frolicsome situations, in fact everything to drive dull care ..away .. . and that's a factor.

REGENT THEATRE.

[WEDNESDAY ONLY.

"STEADY COMPANY."

"Steady Company," Universe's romantic film of flying fists and fluttering hearts, will have its Te Awamutu premiere at the Regent Theatre to-morrow evening, with Norman Foster and Junie Clyde appearing m the featured leads. Hollywood iust seen it at the preview and gives it a remarkable rating. Concerning a virile young truck driver who falls in lbve with a pretty blonde telephone operator" and wh'p immediately determines to court fame and fortune for her via the prizefight ring, the 'picture is heralded... as one of the most engaging of glove romances. The girl flanks her; hero has been going tjo night school to become a great surgeon and when he surprises her with a handful of newspaper clippings that laud him in his first -prize fight he receives rebuke instead of enthusiasm. Henry Armetta, popular Italian comedian of a score of hits, plays one of the most important parts in Steady Company" and ever-Welcomed Zasu Pitts is prominent among the cast which also includes J. Farrell McDonald, Walter Miller and Jack Perry. THURSDAY AND FRIDAY. ''IGLOO." An untutored Eskimo girl played the leading feminine role in her first and last—motion picture, and revealed herself as a natural-born actress of real ability. The picture is "Igloo," Ewing Scott's Universal drama which was produced by Edward Small in the ice-bound village of Point Hope in Northwestern Alaska, a desolate settlement of 250 Eskimos. For the making of the picture Scott, business manager of the expedition and director of "Igloo," took with him from Hollywood a stalwart 24-year-old Eskimo named Chee-Ak, who had gone to the film capital from his native Alaskan village of Kechkech Taguruk a short time before. All other members of the cast of this remarkable picture were recruited from the half-savage natives of Point Hope. In Kyatuk, a girl of the village, Scott found one of the few Eskimos he had iever seen whjo seemed capable of expressing emotion. Though at first inordinately shy, she had an expressive face, and under the tutelage of the director soon developed a confidence, and a facility of expression which made her ideal for her role. She had little tof the stolid reserve of the average Eskimo. "Igloo," said to be at once the most intimate and the most exciting picture-ever filmed in the Arctic, comes to the-screen of the Regent Theatre on ..Thursday and Friday. "|§- . j j . j.i"'jgg> COMING ON SATURDAY. * "THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE."

. The. Story of the "Sentimental Bloke" is the oldest story rat the world. Yet to each succeeding gen- - eration and in every country of the earth it is ever new and ever absorbing. It can be told morte briefly than any story and it has ten thousand variations yet, fundamentally, it is ever the same. A man longs, he loves, he doubts, is retonciled, he weds, adventures, becomes a fathei, and so finds life's fulfilment. A very early critic of the "Bloke," shortly after the book of verses was published, gave it the most tense, yet the truest criticism of. a*l. "In these lines" he wrote, "we have truth in the national dress." And that is all therfc is of it. What there is of humour, of pathos, of characterisation is merely incidental—vehicles used in the old, old story, the, story of every man. in Australian' environment and upon Australian sloil. Here \s the reason for the book's extraordinary -■■• popularity and for the interest it has sustained amongst all the classes of Australians over a number oi years. In the story of "the Sentimental Bloke" every man. high and low, sees, if he is honest with himself, something of his own story; sometimes more, sometimes less, yet still '/: ■ a litty* of his own story, as it has J happened if He is old, as he hopes it " may happen if he is still young and - in love. For the "Bloke" at the end of all his difficulties; attains the ob- ' ' ject of- Ws desire, and what man is "'- ; ■■','■> there who would not wish to do that? In talking picture.form it has been possibl'eVto nresent to men andwo- - ' : i -men this intimate theme more vivid - r fc.lv and m)ore tellingly:than in any form the .tale has: been-given. in the-modern screen it has bee«

possible to employ a combination of the visual, tbe aural and the written word And for those countl&ss Australians and others who have enjoyed the book, the silent version, or the sta"-e play, Efftee Productions has been able to devise a happy combination of all three that will unquestionably awaken for this evei-geen story of thje simple man whfo longed and loved and won. ~--.. The supports-with this picture are of' exceptional interest, and are all Australian.) There will be another of the Barrier Reef (nature study) series, the popular Sundowners' Quarteete sing, and Geo. Wallace appears An a "perfect panic of comedy." v