OPERA HOUSE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 25, 24 October 1942, Page 10

OPERA HOUSE

There are some'folk, who, in a fatuous endeavour to raise ills., status above, that of the mere Gables, and Tracys and Coopers, of ’ the screen, insist on placing “Mr” before (Charles Laughton’s, name. It might have been all-right'in the case of George Arliss, that amazing old rascal who made Disraeli and, Richelieu and Rothschild behave exactly like Mr. George Arliss. But for Laughton—no,! He is the most mischievous rapscallion oil the screen today-, pottering about" with consummate art and thumbing his nose at the highbrows..' , , This week he, is at the Opera-House in a little film'that has arrived by the back door, as it were. No one had’ heard of “The Tuttles of Tahiti” a week ago. No one is going to be discussing it in. a year’s time. Bnt it has a simple philosophy and charm' that make it good entertainment. Perhaps that sounds lukewarm—he didn’t like the picture, you are saying. Well, you are wrong. ' , Charles Laughton. is Jonas Tuttle,, the most impecunious,.' lovable, improvident man in the whole of Tahiti. His home, a great rambling place with little furniture and a door that'is never closed, houses his understanding, wise and toothless mother,-his sons, his daughters, his grandchildren and whoever else cares to' seek its shelter. He has a passion for gambling, and when his eldest son arrives back from. San Francisco with a cock named Black Eagle he mortgages the farm, vanilla crop and most of his furniture to lay outrageous bets on the success of this cock in a fight against his neighbour's, a .fine strutting bird from Australia. Naturally, the pride of the Tuttles is beaten. But his sons, on a fishing expedition, pick up an abandoned barque and tow" it safely to port, exchanging craft', and cargo for. 400.000 franc-S;

The family is delirious with money. Old Jonas provides them all with chequebooks and entertains Papeete on a scale that even Nero scarcely dreamed of. Conies, the awakening—“ Dea- Sir, Your account is overdrawn to the extent of 18 francs.” And so back to the beginning—lying in tile sun, cadging a few francs from a kindly doctor, listening to music, finding a drink here and there. “You know,” says Laughton, the philosopher. “I don’t think us Tuttles were meant to have money, We were only meant to have fun.” What a lot of people'there are like that—and they seem, to make the world a better place. . ; . .