REGENT THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 37, 13 February 1937, Page 11

REGENT THEATRE

“THE CAPTAIN’S KID “The Captain’s Kid,” the new First National comedy romance opens at the Regent Theatre to-day with a talented cast headed by May Robson, famous for half a century on stage and screen, Sybil Jason, the brilliant little child star, and Guy Kibbee, the jolly, rotund comedian. The picture, is said to be replete not only with 1 rollicking humour, but to contain many melodramatic thrills and a glamorous romance. There are two catchy songs written especially for the picture by M. K. Jerome and Jack Scholl, one sung by the seven-year-old star, Sybil Jason, entitled “I’m the Captain’s Kid,” and the other by Fred Lawrence, “Drifting Along.” Little Sybil and Kibbee are pals at the New England summer home on the south, owned by the elderly spinster, Miss Robson, whose marriage to Kibbee had been called off twenty years before because he went off fishing on his wedding day. Kibbee, in the role of a kindly old waterfront loafer and the biggest tail-story teller in the country, fills the child w;th tales of pirates, all of which she believes. Finding a map in the ancient garret, she takes it to Kibbee, who goes off with Sybil on a treasure hunt to a nearby island. They find real treasure in chest, buried, as it comes out later, by a warrior of the Revolution, who feared Tory thieves. But high-jackers try to steal the treasure and in the scuffle one of them is accidentally killed. Kibbee is held for murder, but finally cleared in one of the most surprising climaxes screened. The romantic leads are played by Jane Bryan and Fred Lawrence, whose marriage is forbidden by the crotchety spinster. Others in the cast are Dick Purcell, Mary Treen, Gus Shy, Maude Allen, Victor Potel, George E. Stone and Gordon Hart.

On the associate vaudeville programme there is a variety pf talent. Trevor and Dawn, Continental adagio acrobats, appear in a sensationally successful series of scenes. Esme Chalk, soubrette and tap-dancing comedienne, soon establishes herself as a favourite with the audience, and Roy Baker, wizard of the keyboard, “tickles the ivories” to the delight of every member of the audience.