MAJESTIC THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 252, 23 October 1937, Page 11

MAJESTIC THEATRE

“100 MEN AND A GIRL.” The privilege of seeing (and hearing) 15-year-old Deanna Durbin at , her delightful best will fall to patrons at the Majestic Theatre to-day. The sweetness and abandon of the girl, which did so much to make the recent record success of “Three Smart Girls,” are with her in the making of this new and unusual picture. Into the artificiality of the screen, Deanna Durbin enters like a breath of fresh air; and one wonders whether advancing age and sophistication will spoil her natural charm. However, it is abundantly with her now, so now is the time to make the most of it, and her new picture, “One Hundred Men and a Girl,” provides the opportunity. Many singers can offer nothing in personality, but with Deanna voice and personality—song and smile—are inseparable. They merge into one. The child who can sing gloriously Mozart’s “Allelujah” and “The Drinking Song” from “La Traviata” is also a merry little rogue with a feather in her hat, who crashes her way into solemn private orchestral rehearsals, eluding the fat doorkeeper. Through rows of empty chairs the doorkeeper pursues, and in a parallel row a feather is seen to pass down the rows oi chair-backs. Under the feather is Deanna, an unre pentant fugitive. Fate wills that she outwits the doorkeeper, and breaks in on a rehearsal conducted by the great Leopold Stokowski (Stokowski himself, no mere actor substitute!) who yields to Deanna’s charm, as must everybody. Glorious music flows, and Stokowski, a dramatic figure, is a revelation to anyone who has never seen him conduct—yet the abiding memory of the picture is the flowering girlhood of this juvenile star, who by an art of her own can combine the genius of classical music with sweet fifteen. There are scores of operatic stars who could have sung the music, yet not one who could steal from her this secret of personal magic. Many of her asides with the hundred men—her competition with Mischa Auer for seating accommodation, and her encounters with the taxi-driver who was forced to invest eight dollars 20 cents in her voice—belong to true comedy. The great mass of people will need no better recommendation to see Deanna Durbin than Deanna herself, but the musical public will note that Leopold •Stokowski and his Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra render the following: sth. Symphony (Tschaikowski), RSfcowzy March (Berlioz), Introduction to the 3rd. of “Lohengrin” (Wagner), 2nd. Hungarian Rhapsody (Liszt), “Zampa” Overture (Herold). In addition to the Mozart and Verdi compositions already mentioned, everybody’s sweetheart sings “It’s Raining Sunbeams” and “Music in my Dreams.”