ROLLICKING COMEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 92, 20 April 1939, Page 5

ROLLICKING COMEDY

"THE YOUNG IN HEART.” A rollicking comedy wil/i a diverting plot and an ideal cast is "The Young in Heart," which is to screen on Friday of next week at the Plaza Theatre. The film has as its featured players Douglas Fairbanks, jn., Paulette Goddard, Janet Gaynor, Billie Burke, Roland (Topper) 'Young, and Henry Stephenson. Roland Young, as is often the case, will be considered by the majority of those who see . the film as giving the most amusing performance, but. the others all por- I tray their parte well. The film deals with a family of very indolent people i who prefer to chase around Europe ' in search of legacies and fortunes t rather than work for a living. They i become very hardened—so they think < —when they start out to work for an I old lady’s fortune, but when they are 1 faced with possibility of the old lady ' dying, they And that, their affection 1 for her outweighs their avaricious- 1 ness. | 1 Dance Drama. "Dance Drama" as distinguished : from the general conception of the ■ traditional ballet, is the creation of : Albertina Rasch, former premiere 1 danseuse of the Vienna Opera, as a new mode of dramatic expression in connection with music. It reaches the public for the first time in “The Great Waltz." Strauss’ inspiration to compose “Tales of the Vienna Woods," for instance, is told in sequences in which he and the woman he loves roam the woods, while the song of birds, the tinkling of a brook, a shepherd's horn and other natural sounds are woven into a tone poem depicting his inspiration. Mme. I Rasch's principal dance spectacle is the “Fledermaus Ballet,” staged in a replica of the Imperial Opera on the occasion of the opening performance of the opera and Johann Strauss’ first great triumph. Miliza Korjus, as the | prima donna, appears in the ballet > and about her a series of figures I showing the development of the waltz are danced by 200 ballerinas to I authentic Strauss music. A Good Man Down? ' Cecil B. De Mille celebrated 25 yeais ! of directing motion pictures by collapsing —but continuing to direct from I a hospital stretcher. The collapse beigan when the 57-year-old veteran was Iso weak after two months of directing . three separate film units shooting I scenes for Paramount's “Union Paciific” that he had to be taken home in i an ambulance. De Mille was ordered to bed by his physician, who told him lit would be impossible for him to .direct for the next two weeks. The following day, however, he insisted on making a radio appearance, so that he would not fail his partner of 25 years ago, Jesse L. Lasky, with whom he made the first feature-length movie land who was launching a new air I programme, with which he plans to bring new talent to pictures. The next day De Mille again defied his physician to slow him up. Declaring that he had (iirected one of his most successful pictures, "Manslaughter," 17 years ago while confined to a wheel-chair with arthritis, the pro-ducer-director called for an ambuj lance, was taken to the studio on a stretcher, and continued directing his railroad story,