REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

AN UNUSUAL FILM. The presentation of a spectacular musical show with armies of beautiful girls who dance very effectively with or without handsome male partners on mirror-like floors is part of the byplay in "Premiere,” which will be shown at the Regent Theatre tonight. These scenes are some of the finest ever seen on the screen. The real theme of the film is the solution of a murder in a theatre and neither this, nor the obligato of the stage work suffer in a well-balanced presentation. John Lodge, playing a police inspector, is called from the auditorium to investigate the murder. He tells the manager he does not envy that official’s job because of the mass of conflicting interests and emotions that surge around theatrical life. The solving of the mystery gives force to the inspector’s words. The audience sees the successful leading lady, so sure of her continued triumphs and the girl she has displaced, frantic with despair and the stage manager to whom the murder is just an amazing additional difficulty in putting over a first performance. There is a handsome leading man whose love affairs get him discharged, and a theatre manager whose task is to drive the whole halfcrazy team in harness to amuse the audience on the other side of the curtain. That audience, including the lady who loved first nights because “something may go wrong,” knows nothing of the tremendous drama that is played out under the cover of the musical comedy that entertains it so well during the performance of “Premiere.” There is some original comedy. too, in a member of the audience producing the various ingredients of a square meal from his pockets and consuming therti during the show, the detective’s silly-ass friend who voices the profound theory that the impresario was shot by “someone in the theatre,” and a stage manager who drags actors away from the police because they are late for their call. The cast is headed by John Lodge, Judy Kelly, Joan Marion, Hugh Williams, Wallace Geoffrey, and Edmond Breon. “THE CITADEL.” The outstanding attraction at the Regent Theatre on Friday night will be “The Citadel,” the picture that has caused a sensation wherever it has been shown. The book itself has sold by the hundreds of thousands and the picture is breaking box office records.