SONG AND ROMANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 137, 11 June 1937, Page 10

SONG AND ROMANCE

“ROSE MARIE” AT MAJESTIC. EXTENDED SEASON. In a production sweeping with song and scented with romance, Janette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, those celebrated co-stars of “Naughty Marietta,” continue on the screen al the Majestic Theatre in their well-known characters of light opera, “Rose Marie.”

Under their magic .spell the full beauty of “The Indian Love Call,” “Rose Marie,” “Love You,” “Song of the Mounties,” and other classics from the Herbert Stothart-Rudolf Frimi score, live again. More charming even than they were in the recordbreaking “Naughty Marietta,” “Rose Marie” is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer triumph. Filmed almost entirely out-of-doors, in the mountain-like country of the Sierra Nevadas, the production is a pictorial sensation. Glimmering lakes, towering peaks, dangerous passes, all the beauty of nature serves as background for the romantic saga of the Great North-west. It was given full benefit of Director W. S. Van Dyke’s proven talents, and magnificently mounted by Producer Hunt Stromberg, the successful collaborators of “Naughty Marietta.” “Rose Marie” is the story of a Canadian grand opera singer who travels incog-i nito into the backwoods regions in search of her brother, a criminal ffom justice. Also searching for the brother is Sergeant Bruce, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They meet and fall in love, until she realises the mission of the other. The crashing climax and poignant ending of the story will be remembered long after most pictures are forgotten. One of the outstanding sequences is the Totem Pole Indian Dance, the grotesque set mounted on a sandspit extending into a broad lake. Peopled by by more than a thousand dancers, lavish in costume, with music thrillingly beautiful, it sets a new height for effect photography and spectacular direction. A strong supporting cast assists Miss MacDonald and Eddy in “Rose Marie,” among them being James Stewart as the criminal brother, Reginald Owen as the star’s manager, Allan Jones, who scored so decisively in “A Night at the Opera,” George Regas, Robert Greig, Una O’Connor and Lucien Littlefield. Also present is Gilda Gray of “Follies” fame, whose new version of her celebrated “shimmy” dance is one of the highlights of a striking cafe scene.