REGENT THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 109, 10 May 1934, Page 7

REGENT THEATRE

“YOU CAN’T BUY EVERYTHING.” Wall Street, high finance, romance and mother-love all blend in “You Can’t Buy Everything,” which brings May Robson to the talking screen in one of the most amazing vehicles ever provided for her. The new Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayor championship picture, now showing at the Kegent Theatre shows her as a money-mad woman financier, battling against financial giants, toying with the fate of banks and other institutions, and, between Wall Street coups, depicts her other side as a mother. Reminiscent perhaps of Hetty Green, Miss Robson portrays a woman who, jilted by a young banker in her youth, has two thoughts—to become the richest woman in the world and to get revenge. She pinches pennies, sends her crippled son to a free clinic, all to save for the great day. She finally has her chance, through stock manipulation, to wreck the lover of her youth, only to find that her son and tho (laughter of the banker are in love. In an intense dramatic scene she learns that mother-love comes above the love of money, and a gripping climax solves her problem. Charles F. Riesner, noted for many Dressler-Moran hits, directed the picture, injecting deft comedy and human angles into the story. Lewis Stone plays Burton, the banker-lover, and youthful Jean Parker enacts his daughter, with William Bakewell as the woman financier’s son. Mary Forbes plays tho society woman friend of the female financial wizard. Reginald Mason the family physician, and the son, as a boy, is played by Tad Alexander, Walte’r Walker, Reginald Barlow and others have adequate roles in the picture, the action of which begins in the nineties, and extends down through the panic of 1907, giving accurate views of the financial crisis of the Theodore Roosevelt era. It was just 50 years ago, in 1883, that the Austra-lian-born May Robson, a timid girl of 17, walked out in front of the footlights to play the first two roles in her long and eventful theatrical career—and both these roles, an ingenue and a charwoman, were in the same play. “You Made Me Love You.’’ There’s never been anything funnier than British International Pictures’ 1934 “happiness” picture, “You Made Me Love You,” the merry musical comedy version of the taming of a very modern and equally beautiful Shrew, co-starring Hollywood’s captivating comedienne, Thelma Todd, and Britain’s famous laughter leader, Stanley Lupino, which comes to the Regent Theatre on Saturday. The sparkling success of “You Made Me Love You” is the refreshing absence of pretence; it sets out to make you laugh heartily, and remains in the same lively, boisterous, and exhilarating key throughout, cramming every foot with joyous laughter and “smashing” romance.