WODEHOUSE COMEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 256, 28 October 1937, Page 3

WODEHOUSE COMEDY

“STEP LIVELY, JEEVES!” “Charming chappies, these gangsters,” was Jeeves’ amicable comment, but it seems they' sometimes get rough, then it's Jeeves, by Jeepers, who gets tough. A mobster’s social error makes P. G. Wodehouse’s lovable “gentleman’s gentleman” tear loose to teach gangland to mend its manners in Twentieth Century-Fox's bit of jolly nonsense, “Step Lively, Jeeves!” which is to screen next Friday at the Plaza Theatre, with the sad-eyed, elongated Arthur Treacher in the title role. Patricia Ellis and Robert Kent are featured in the romantic leads. In a spoofing mood, director Eugene Forde has provided fun and excitement no end in a story that jolly well tickles the ribs, for Alan Dinehart and George Givot are teamed as a pair of sober, hard-work-ing swindlers hoping to wrest an illicit livelihood from Helen Flint, social-climbing wife of a retired gangleader, by passing off Jeeves, their unsuspecting dupe, as a genuine earl and long-missing heir to a tremendous fortune. The story by Frances Hyland, adapted for the screen by Frank Fenton and Lynn Root, immediately plunges the gentle, reserved and utterly proper Jeeves into a mad mix-up of shooting, gangsters and assorted varieties of giddy misadventures, highlighted by his proper interest in the romantic problems of his only two friends in America, Patricia and Robert, and his strict adherence to the rules of perfect decorum. The inimitable Jeeves wit, made famous in the original character created by P. G. Wodehouse, steps with calm efficiency into the midst of the hilarious confusion to smooth things out in imperturbable Jeeves style.