ENTERTAINMENTS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 264, 6 August 1942, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

De Luxe Theatre.— Another big Movie Quiz Jackpot, conducted by Maurice Hawken, will be featured at the De Luxe tonight. A big double feature programme also opens today, headed by "The Ghost of Frankenstein,” which continues from the point at which “Son of Frankenstein,” last of the series, ended. The fourth of the series, it is claimed to be the most terrifying of them all. ’ It opens with the dynamiting of the Frankenstein castle, an action which fails in its objective, to destroy the monster and his mad friend, Ygor. The monster, played by L<jn Chaney, and Ygor, enacted a second time by Bela Lugosi, proceed to the village in which Dr. Frankenstein, second son of the mon-ster-creator, lives in anonymity as far as his kinship to his infamous father is concerned. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is effectively cast as the new Dr. Frankenstein who “inherits” the monster. His daughter, played by Evelyn Ankers, urges the doctor to destroy the monster, but his scientific mind causes him to attempt a daring experiment. Frankenstein attempts to place a normal brain in the monster, to convert him into a docile creature, but a treacherous assistant takes a hand in the surgery and the monster emerges more fearsome than ever before. The second big feature, an hilarious comedy, "Don’t Get Personal,” start Mischa Auer and Hugh Herbert, supported by Jane Franzee and Robert Paige. Also screening is Chapter 2 of the new serial, “Don Winslow of the Navy.”

Regent Theatre. — Commencing today is a glamorous technicolonr film, “Bahama Passage," starring Madeleine Carrol and Stirling Hayden. To see “Bahama Passage” one would think that God had created .the West Indies to the specifications of a Hollywood technicolonr cameraman, so well do the islands fit the colour medium on the films. Also screening is “100,000 Cobbers.” an Australian film of Australia’s war effort.

King's Theatre.— “Call Out the Marines” with Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe, will be screened finally todiy. This new effort is just as (rood as their previous ones, and in practically every scene they manage to get themselves Into trouble. It goes without saying that a girl-is usually at the bottom of the trouble. Commencing tomorrow is “Ladies in Retirement,” a film version of the Broadway hit; starring Ida Lupine, Louis Hayward, Evelyn Keyes and Edith Barrett. It is a drama of four women and one man in an unholy battle of strange desires in a house of dreadful secrets.

St. James Theatre.— Heading the cast of “The Fleet’s In,” Dorothy Lamour is ably supported by William Holden, Eddie Bracken, and Betty Hutton, and' Jimmy Dorsey and his band, which puts over some excellent numbers. This baud is now rated among the top three or four iu the United States. Will Hay’s latest picture, “The Black Sheep of Whitehall," will open its Wellington season tomorrow. In this, his latest hit. Will Hay enacts the part of a spare-time detective in a farce of mistaken identity. Also on the programme will be a “March of Time” presenting “The Argentine Question.”

Opera House.— Whatever the merits of Jane Austen's writings, they are hardly classed as “fun riots,” yet that is how the advertisements describe the film version of “Pride and Prejudice,” now in its last day. Be this as it may, the picture is a good one, starring Greer Garson, with Mary Boland, Edna -May Oliver, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford and Laurence Olivier. Commencing tomorrow is “The Philadelphia Story,” with Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart.

Tudor Theatre.— Screening finally today are “The Corsican Brothers,” starring Douglas Fairbanks, and “The Great Swindle,” with Jack Holt and Marjorie Reynolds. Commencing tomorrow is “Joan of Paris,” starring Michele Morgan and Paul Henreid. in a thrilling story of Paris under the Nazi heel. The second feature will be ••Scattergood Pulls the Strings,” with Guy Kibbee.

Paramount Theatre,—ln 1913, when hardly anyone dared to mention venereal disease in public, a Frenchman, Eugene Brieux, wrote a play trying to show that it did more barm than good to conceal knowledge ot' the disease's dangers. The English version of the play was called “Damaged Goods,” and the play has since been made into a film, which is now showing at the Paramount Theatre. This is by no means the first occasion on which "Damaged Goods” has been shown, but so topical is its message these days that no one will complain at its revival. Showing with it on the same programme is Gene Stratton Porter’s "Freckles Comes Home.’ Featured are Johnny Downs and Gale Storm.

Majestic Theatre—Tile adventures of a society; girl takes a chance and a love against wliieh. she has been warned, are told in “Johnny Eager.” The impulsive heroine is played by Lana Turner, and her chosen by Robert Taylor. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer go so far as to term the film a dramatic blast and a romantic explosion.

State Theatre.— "Confessions of Boston Blackie,” moves through an assortment of gun-fights and fist-fights, with Chester Morris keepiug one step ahead of the police at all times. He spends his time dodging cops and killers in order to solve the homicide for which he has been blamed. As though being a constant target were not enough, Blackie's efforts to clear himself are further complicated when a beautiful young blackmailer attempts to "sell him out. The second film, “Torchy Gets Her Man," sees the whole Torchy cast go through the melodramatic hoops again aud lhe customary happy ending.

Pluza Theatre.— The film version of Richard Llewellyn’s “How Green Was Mv Valley" telescopes the events a good many years of Huw Morgan s life into a two-hour span. Donald Crisp plays the part of the father. Sara Allgood gives a performance as austere and dignified as Crisp’s; but to little Roddy McDowell must go half the praise earned by the film.