PLAZA THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 208, 5 September 1935, Page 12

PLAZA THEATRE

! “DOUBTING THOMAS.’’ The late Will Bogers, favourite of all screen fans, is to be seen in hi.-, latest talkie comedy, “Doubting Thomas, ,} now screening at the Plaza Theatre. He portrays the role of a small-town sausage manufacturer who doubts the talents of his stage struck wife, played by Billie Burke, and attempts to cure ner. Among the long list of favourites in the supporting cast are Alison Skipworth, Sterling Holloway, Gail Patrick, Frances Grant and Frank Albertson. Reports from other cities have audiences rolling in the aisles of the theatres at Rogers’ new wisecracks in the role of a simple, home-loving sausage manufacturer, whose calm world is tossed into a turmoil when his wife goes theatrical. She appears in an amateur charity show. You’ll laugh your fill when Billie Burke, under the influence of Alison Skipworth, who pl;*ys an amateur ini presario, wants to make a career of the stage until Rogers finally effects a cure by hiring a bogus Hollywood director to tell the amateur group what he thinks of their screen tests, after which Will surprises everyone with a sequence which can be chalked down as one of the highlights of all Rogers’ films. The film is well-paced, capably handled and directed, and each member of the cast is particularly well suited to his or her respective role. It will, no doubt, add thousands of names to the great roster of Rogers’ fans. The picture was adapted from George Kelly’s stage hit, “The Torch Bearers. ” Billie Burke is splendid as the stage-struck wife who think she’s been suppressing a desire all these many years. Alison Skipworth very capably and expertly repeats the part of Mrs. Pampinelli, which she played on the stage; while Sterling Holloway, as the bungling sound-effects man for the play, is a screen. Frances Grant and Frank Albertson give realistic performances, the latter as Rogers’ son and the former as the son’s fiancee, and David Butler uses his directorial skill admirably.