MAJESTIC THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 158, 6 July 1934, Page 7

MAJESTIC THEATRE

‘ LADY FOR A DAY.” The difficult feat of telling a fairy story in which the principal characters are New York gangsters and beggars, is accomplished with delightful artistry and humour in ‘‘Lady for a Day/' which shows finally to-day at the Majostie Theatre. The film, in effect, sets out to show that even in the heart of New York romance and ohivalry are not dead, and that tne miraculous is as likely to happen to-day as in the past. The story concerns an old apple seller, “Apple Annie,” who has seen better days, but whose fondness for gin keeps her among the city’s outcasts. She has a daughter, whom she sent as a child to a convent in Spain. Greatly to her alarm, the daughter writes to say she is coming to New Y r ork, bringing with her her fiance and and his father, a Spanish count, who refuses to consent to a marriage until he has seen the girl’s parents. A gangster, who has always experienced good luck through buying one of Annie’s apples before engaging in his nefarious projects, comes to the aid of the old woman. Through his good offices she is provided with beautiful clothes and transformed into t'hc handsome and gracious lady her daughter imagines her to be. Having determined to satisfy the count in every particular, the gangster leaves no stone umtiirned to make the ruse a success, and his ingenuity provides Annie successively with a luxurious suite of rooms, a husband and even, when occasion demands, a ballroom full of distinguished visitors.

“Nana” To-morrow. With that alluring Russian actress, Anna Sten, for the title role, “Nana” comes to the Majestic Theatre to-mor-row. Anna Sten, a curious mixture of moods and fancies, has the aloofness of Garbo, the personality of (Dietrich, and the charm of Mary Pickford. Her handling of the role of the girl who rose from the gutter to be the toast of Paris is a gne a piece of acting as one could imagine. With all due respect to the ability of English and American stars, one cannot help but realise that tihe role could not hflfve been adequately taken by anyone but a foreigner. It calls for displays of temperament which depend so much on the “make-up” in the foreigner. Anna Sten actually seems to live the part she enacts. The original Nana, whose real name was Blanche D’Atigny, had little to commend her. She was thoroughly bad, and had a most extaordinary hoarse voice, and was celebrated for her particularly vulgar rendering of ’the, at the time, vulgar can-can. Anna Sten, fortunately, gives her audience a much more likeable and purer Nana, and on no that wins a great deal of sympathy. The story opens in Paris in the days before the Franco-Prussian War. One secs Nana and two of her scarlet friends sharing the hardships of poverty. During a visit to a cafe she receives the chance of a career on the stage.. There she attracts the attention of a grand duke, and this procures for her security and success as a performer at a popular Parisian •theatre. Success follows success, and the story works up to a vivid climax.