REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 December 1940, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

"THE MORTAL STORM.” “The Mortal Storm,” a thrilling document of current world affairs, will be finally shown tonight at the Regent Theatre. With an all-star cast headed by Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young and Frank Morgan, the dramatic new offering, based on Phyllis Bottome’s best-seller novel, brings to the screen ample food for thought. .A CHRISTMAS TREAT. “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,” the new Warner Bros, technicolour production starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, will be shown tomorrow at the Regent Theatre. Bette Davis, of course, is cast as the selfwilled, vain, and domineering Queen Elizabeth, torn between her love of England and her overwhelming love for the handsome and dashing young Earl of Essex. The film opens after the Cadiz affair, in which Essex, Raleigh and Howard of Effingham played such a part. Essex, already high in Elizabeth’s favour, returns to London expecting more honours and rewards 1o be heaped on him; instead, Elizabeth, angry at the loss of a Spanish treasure ship, disgraces him in front of the whole court. He retires to Wanstead, his own home, in a fit of what might commonly be called “the sulks.” Back in London, Elizabeth, torn be'tween love for Essex and conscious of his weakness, fights against herself. In the end she capitulates and orders him back to court, where once again they quarrel. Flynn as Essex has precisely the type of role in which he has endeared himself to audiences the world over—that of a handsome, swash-buckling hero, as victorious in love as he is in, war. But his victory over Elizabeth is short-lived in the film; for, loving him, she sends him to the executioner’s block, because she realises that if England is to live, Essex must die. Played against the spectacular background of the pomp and pageantry of the Elizabethan court, the love story is still the all-important theme on which the film is focussed. The brilliant supporting cast for the two stars includes Olivia de Havilland, Donald Crisp, Vincent Price, Henry Stephenson, Alan Hale, Ralph Forbes, Henry Daniell, James Stephenson, Nanette Fabares, Robert Warwick, and Leo G. Carroll.