STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1939, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“THE LAW WEST OF TOMBSTONE.” The programme whiph will be shown at the State Theatre tonight will be headed by two features, “The Law West of Tombstone” and “Next Time I Marry.” A frontier feud that began in Texas and ended bloodily in a little Arizona town, comprises the dramatic basis of Harry Carey’s new screen vehicle, “The Law West of Tombstone.” The story opens in New York City some sixty years ago, with Carey striving to enlist the aid of a Wall Street capitalist in a mining scheme. The capitalist, whose lady friend is Carey’s former wife, shows Carey up as a fraud, and sends him West again, where he embarks on his one-man career as judge and jury of western Arizona. The feud lies between Carey, in the role of the braggart but deadshot Bill Barker, and the McQuinn brothers, a trio of would-be desperadoes. Coming to the boiling point shortly after the story opens, the quarrel carries on through the colourful efforts of Barker to establish himself as Mayor, Judge and jury of western Arizona, and winds up in a graphic and breathless gun duel in the streets of the little frontier community. Against this grim background is played a sparkling romance between a young gun-fighter whom Barker has taken under his wing and Barker’s daughter, who believes herself an orphan whose father was killed at Gettysburg. Jean Rouverol and Tim Holt have the romantic leads, with Clarence Kolb, Evelyn Brent, Esther Muir, Allan Lane, Bradley Page and other well-known players in pro'minent roles.

Lucille Ball and James Ellison, two of fllmdom’s most promising young players, are teamed for the first time in RKO Radio’s “Next Time I Marry.” Lee Bowman is the third featured player. Concerning a “marriage of convenience” between a spoiled heiress and a happy-go-lucky W.P.A. worker that ultimately develops into genuine romance, the story presents Miss Ball as a fiery-tempered socialite and Ellison an impoverished young man who finds himself married to a girl worth twenty million dollars. Miss Ball, a former Hattie Carnegie mannequin, leaped to fame on the screen in “Stage Door,” in which she played the hard-boiled Seattle girl. Recently she was awarded stellar billing in “Annabel Takes a Tour,” and “The Affairs of Annabel.” Western pictures were Ellison's introduction to films.