IN FOREIGN LANDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 186, 7 August 1936, Page 10

IN FOREIGN LANDS

ROMANCE AT PLAZA. “PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER.” Starring Victor McLaglen with Freddie Bartholomew, 20th. Century’s “Professional Soldier,” opening to-day at the Plaza Theatre, is a gay> brave story of romance and adventure in foreign lands. McLaglen plays the part of an adventurer who first meets his little pal as the victim whom he has been hired to secrete away. Freddie Bartholomew is the boy monarch of a little European country, and McLaglen is in the pay of revolutionaries. In a mountain hideaway, McLaglen soon discovers that the little king is a regular lad. A great friendship grows between them. McLaglen’s assistant, Michael Whalen, at the same time develops an affection for the lovely lady of the court who had to be abducted with Freddie, Gloria Stuart. Events come rapidly to a head when a royalist counter-revolution recaptures the kingling and sends McLaglen to a prison cell to await execution. Then McLaglen learns that a secret plot is afoot to do away with Freddie Bartholomew. He manages to fight his way out of gaol and soon he is engaged in the most thrilling, savage battle of his life, the fight that brings a happy climax to the picture. Prominent in the supporting cast of this Darryl F. Zanuck production are Constance Collier and C. Henry Gordon. Tay Garnett, who recently brought “China Seas” to the screen, was director on ‘•‘Professional Soldier,” adapted from a Damon Runyon story. Famous Ballets. Alhambra Theatre, London, housed recently the Ballets of .Monte Carlo, the programme consisting of “Les Sylphides,” one of Fokine’s earliest lereations; “L’Epreuve D’Amour,” with music by Mozart and “Petrouchka,” the famous Stravinsky ballet. There was also a new Fokine ballet, a reconstruction of • “Don Juan,” to music by Gluck; it was first produced in Vienna in 1761.