AMUSEMENTS

Camp News, Volume 1, Issue 16, 29 March 1940, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS

PLAZA THEATRE. Movie fans, here’s the picture for you, and we do mean you! It’s Darryl F. Zanuck’s production of “Hollywood Cavalcade,” starring Alice Faye and Don Ameche, and filmed in technicolor at the Plaza Theatre. It re-enacts and photographs anew the romance of Hollywood from bathing beauties to world premieres; tells the great human story of Mike, who wanted to make movies, and Molly, who wanted only to be loved by Mike but who instead won greatness on the screen. It tells the drama of the men and women like them who conquered the entertainment world in the romantic, fabulous, zany years of Hollywood’s rise.

Staged again, with great stars of to-day and great personalities of yesterday, you’ll see slapstick : and cust-ard-pie comedy, with Don Ameche directing. You’ll see the Mack Sennett bathing girls, and this time Alice Faye is one. Once again, Buster Keaton, Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin and the Keystone Cops are seen in hilarious scenes from the past. Once again, Al Jolson sings the song with which he electrified the world in “The Jazz Singer.” You’ll see • Hollywood as it was and as it is, in a three-ring circus of entertainment.

- The 20th Century-Fox film is at the Plaza Theatre. Just as “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” brought back your happiest memories, ’ so .'“Hollywood Cavalcade” will recall your fondest movie days. Irving Cummings, himself a 30-year veteran of filmdom, directed the picture, with Harry Joe Brown associate producer. The cast features J. Edward Bromberg, Alan Curtis, Stuart Erwin, Jed Prouty, Donald Meek, George Givot and Eddie Collins.

KING’S THEATRE. A brilliant screen transmutation of Victor Hugo’s renowned novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” at the King’s Theatre during Easter, with Charles Laughton in the title role, with a star-studded featured cast, with a record roster of atmosphere players, and with a vivid pageant of medieval Parisian life staged against dazzling sets of monumental proportions. Treating of that significant period of European history just before Columbus discovered America, when thinkers everywhere were throwing off the shackles of superstition and ignorance and were awakening to a new world of progress, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” has long been a classic of literature. Written in 1823-30, the book created a worldwide sensation and established the name of Victor Hugo. Its immortal tale deals with Quasimodo, the deformed but loyal orphan who rings the great bells of Notre Dame. A beauteous dancing gypsy, Esmeralda, comes to Paris for the annual Feast of Fools in the winter of 1482. She arouses the sinister interest of the King’s High Justice, Frollo, who pursues her to the cathedral where thanks to the right of sanctuary, she receives shelter and safety. Later, Esmeralda flees, Quasimodo endevouring to bring her back. He is caught and flogged for abduction, while Esmeralda finds refuge with the powerful Beggars’ Guild.

While entertaining at the birthday party of Fleur de Lys, Esmaralda attracts a soldier, Phoebus, who is slain by the jealous Frollo, Esmeralda is accused, tried and sentenced to the gallows. The Archbishop of Notre Dame learns that his brother, Frollo, is really guilty of the crime, but before he can secure her freedom, Quasimodo rescues the condemned girl by swinging out of the bell-tower on a rope.

STATE THEATRE. Something- delightfully new under the screen sun is the tuneful comedy, “That’s Right You’re Wrong,” at the State Theatre. Starring Kay Kyser with his orchestra and Adolphe Menjou, the picture breaks sharply away from the conventional boy-meets-girl successstory theme on which most band leader films have been based. With engaging candour, the producers admit that such a theme is threadbare — and develop their plot around the ingenious thesis that it is impossible to find any other theme.

Consequently, the story deals with the hilarious but futile efforts of a big Hollywood film company to make a picture with Kyser and his band, and in so doing it offers gay and laughter-packed entertainment. Kyser and his musicians portray themselves throughout and Menjou has the role of the luckless producer assigned to the task of bringing Kyser to the screen.

At first, Kyser and his followers are enthusiastic, and proceed to go to Hollywood in a big way. But presently Menjou discovers that his trusted pair of scenario-writers have concocted an utterly unsuitable story for Kyser, and are unable to think up a good one.

Faced with this impasse, Menjou tries to get Gyser to tear up his contract. The batonist fights back, his manoeuvres speeding up the film furiously to a hilarity-packed climax.

Kyser scores notably in his initial effort and with Menjou easily grabs the laugh-getting honours of the film. Lucille Ball is excellent as the glamour girl and May Robson furnishes much of the fun as Kyser’s redoubtable grandmother. Edward Everett Horton, Roscoe Karns, Dennis O’Keefe and Moroni Olsen, along with the Kyser soloists, Ginny Simms, Harry Babbit, Sully Mason and Ish Kabibble, earn abundant comedy laurels.

Giving a vivid glimpse of what life is like in the totalitarian countries to-day, “Conspiracy,” at the State Theatre, with Allan Lane, Linda Hayes and Robert Barrat in the leads.

The plot of this exciting adventure film revolves around a shipload of munitions sent to a foreign country and an ensuing web of intrigue between the secret police of that country and a grim band of patriots striving to overthrow its dictatorship.

Lane, as the radio operator aboard the ship, is speedily involved in the affair. He escapes from the vessel and swims ashore, only to find himself a fugitive from both sides seeking his life. A mysterious girl takes him in charge and endeavours to get him safely out of the country, and this leads to the thrilling series of adventures in which the pair are pursued by the police, try to escape by sea and fail, make a bold dash for the radio station at the harbour and summon aid for their final dash to freedom.

Exciting as entertainment, “Conspiracy” is also noteworthy for its presentation of the ceaseless plotting and counter-plotting that is going on abroad to-day. The work of its principals is excellent, particularly that of Lane as the fugitive, of Miss Hayes as the girl in the case, and of Barrat as an expatriate American who comes

to their help.