STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 September 1939, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“STORY OF ALEXANDER BELL.”

The immortal role of the woman whose love inspired one of the most thrilling achievements in America’s past is brought to life by Loretta Young in Darryl F. Zanuck’s production of “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell,” which will be shown tonight at the State Theatre. The popular star has the greatest portrayal in her career in this stirring romantic drama as Mabel Hubbard, the beautiful deaf girl who loved the young dreamer, and out of whose affliction was inspired the invention of the telephone. Don Ameche is starred opposite Miss Young in the title role of this Cosmopolitan production for Twentieth Century-Fox, ■ which depicts in simple, human, and inspiring terms the hopes and struggles of the handsome young man whom people called mad because he believed it was possible for men’s' voices to span continents through a copper wire. Henry Fonda shares stellar honours with the pair as Thomas Watson. Bell’s tireless assistant and ardent admirer. Some idea of the intensity of Bell’s love for the beautiful and courageous Mabel may be derived from the fact that he was willing to abandon the invention of the telephone—the dream of his life —when he feared that further experiment with it would delay their marriage indefinitely. Charles Coburn plays Mabel’s father in the film while Spring Byington is cast as her mother. The associate producer, Kenneth Macgowan, achieved a casting coup by giving the roles of Mabel Hubbard’s three sisters to the sisters of Loretta Young, Sally Blane, Polly Ann Young, .and Georgina Young. Gene Lockhart is also prominently cast in the picture as Thomas Sanders, the man whose deaf child, Alexander Graham Bell taught to speak. Irving Cummings directed the production from a screen play which Lamar Tritto prepared from an original story by Ray Harris. It is a romantic biography told without synthetic embellishment containing high class .entertainment and much , humour. f