PICTURE THEATRES

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 14

PICTURE THEATRES

STATE New tunes, tantalising new dances, and Shirley Temple in her most lovable, believable role! Those are the entertainment delights of Twentieth Century’s ‘ Captain January,' at present having an extended season at the State. A score of tinkling tunes, all with music by Lew Pollack, again give the curly-headed star an opportunity to exhibit her singing talent. Chief of these is ‘ The Right Somebody to Love. For her dancing partner in a series of intricate new steps Shirley now has Buddy Ebsen. tap star of Ziegfeld Follies and sensation of 1 Broadway Melody of 1936.’ The underlying dramatic story of ‘ Captain January ’ deals with the, adventures and near tragedies of Shirley and her two grizzled sea-salt friends, Guy Kibbee and Slim Summerville. Kibbee, who had rescued Shirley from the sea when she was an infant, is jealously fond of the little girl, for ever afraid that somebody will turn up with a better claim to her. AVhen Sara Haden, the mean old truant officer, threatens to take Shirley from him Kibbee stops his quibbling with Slim, and they join forces to temporarily outwit Miss Haden. The climax of the picture is devoted to a thrilling sea chase, in Which Shirley and Kibbee flee from Miss Haden in a sailing ketch. Although they are caught, their friends contrive to bring a happy ending to the picture. Miss Temple acts with the charm and sincerity of an artist of mature experience, and is fortunate in this film to have the support of a large and talented cast. EMPIRE An entirely new film has been made of ‘ Three Live Ghosts,’ and those who remember the success of the picture when it was made in the early days of talkies will welcome the opportunity of measuring the immense progress of film technique since 1930. The new production, which is at the Empire, is a splendid achievement. It presents a story constructed on the lines of broadest "faro© in a way that will appeal to all filmgoers. Briefly, ‘ Three Live Ghosts ’ concerns three soldiers—an American, a Cockney, and a titled Englishman “ queer ” from shellshock—who return from the war after imprisonment in a German camp, to find themselves officially listed as “ dead.” For varying reasons they decide to remain hidden behind this official cloak of anonymity. Their adventures < as they move through London as living dead men, without names or identity, provide moments of hilarious comedy. Claude Allister, Richard Arlen, Charles M'Naughton, and Beryl Mercer head the brilliant cast. Beryl Mercer, incidentally, recreates the role which made her famous on the stage—that of a Cockney mother who gets into a pickle by collecting her boy’s war insurance, only to have him bob up hale and hearty when she has spent the insurance money. The story comes to the screen with a sweep and a breadth that were impossible on the stage, where it was a smashing hit. RECENT Fully worthy to compare with ‘ The Scarlet Pimpernel ’ as romantic entertainment, ‘ The Amateur Gentleman,’ the first release by a new British company, Criterion Films, and which began a season at the Regent Theatre to-day, is a brilliant version of the famous novel by Jeffery Farnol. The film is not only a vivid pageant of Loudon, Bath, and the beautiful English countryside in Regency days, but it is also a full-blooded drama, gloriously coloured with Farnol’s evergreen romance. The kernel of the plot, Barnabas Barty’s masquerade to save his father from the gallows, is revealed in vivid perspective, and the customs, vigorous sporting activities, and manners of the period are cleverly employed to fill in the background. The story tells how Barnabas, son of an innkeeper, determines to save bis father when the latter is wrongly arrested and sentenced to death for robbing the Marquis of Camberhurst. He suspects Ronald, the Marquis’s grandson, and Chichester, an adventurer engaged to Ronald’s sister, tho lovely Lady Cleone, and in order to follow up clues he breaks into society by his prowess with his fists and becomes famous as “ The Amateur Gentleman.” Douglas Fairbanks, jun., conforms perfectly to the popular conception of Barnabas, and cuts a handsome figure. Gordon Barker is excellent as his Cockney henchman, and Elissa Landi has charm and dignity as Lady Cleone. ST. JAMES No society drama, no polite badinage of the drawing room, but a love story without a word of love, a romance as savagely elemental as the environment in which it takes place, is ‘ Riff Raff,’ starring Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy, which commenced at the St. James to-day. .‘.Riff Raff ’ is tho story of a man and a girl who live and work on the waterfront. That is their world, and what they_ lack in book education they make up in wisdom taught in the world’s greatest school—the streets. Hatie is the belle of the waterfront, a wise-cracking, bard-talking, softhearted, bluntly vital girl who has her own standard of morals and her own unique method of retaining them. Dutch Miller is a bombastic, egotistical 1 fellow who thinks the world is his oyster, and that all women in his world

were created especially for him. He regards himself as a leader of men, and does not know that his associates respect him for his brute strength and not, as he believes, for his superior intelligence. These two people fall in love. And when they fall in love the fireworks begin Harlow, knowing intuitively that it would make Tracy completely impossible, has to conceal , from him- the fact that she is blindly, dumbly, madly in love with him. She masks this adoration by fighting with him every time she feels herself “ go- : ing soft.'” The excellent supporting cast includes Una Merkel, Joseph. Cal--1 Hea, J. Farrell MacDonald, Mickey Rooney, Vince Barnett, Julian Quigley, Judith Wood, Arthur Houseman, Lillian Hamer, Helen Costello, Eafaclo Ottiano. OCTAGON Dunedin film patrons love their entertainment as they love their champagne light and bubbly. This, perhaps, is the reason for the evident success of the musical comedy, ‘ Roberta,’ in which Fred Astaire, “ Ginger ” Rogers, and Irene Dunne are starred, which commenced a season at the Octagon. With Miss Dunne singing, Astaire and Miss Rogers dancing, and a bevy of America’s most beautiful girls displaying the latest in feminine style creations, the lavish production is said to move swiftly and tunefully through a . most intriguing story. The plot centres about a double romance in Paris, city of colour and gaiety. The central situation sees an All-American football player as the ow r ner of a feminine style salon by accident of inheritance, and an American college band leader teamed with the favourite of the Paris music halls as the double attraction of a famous night club. Among the Jerome Kern-Otto Harbach numbers which Miss Dunne sings is the popular ‘ Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’ Astaire and Miss Rogers introduce several spectacular dance routines, which, it is claimed, outshine even the ‘ Continental ’ and ‘ The Night and Day ’ of ‘The Gay Divorcee.’ Playing the romantic lead opposite Miss Dunne in the role of the football hero is Randolph Scott. Others in the brilliant cast include Helen Westley, Victor Varconi. Claire Dodd, Luis Alberni, and Ferdinand Munier. ‘ Murder on a Honeymoon,’ featuring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason, is in support. HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE ‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ the film which will be commenced at His Majesty’s Theatre on Wednesday evening next, was ’ one of the 12 Shakespearean plays named by Frances Meres in his ‘ Pladais Tamia,’ published in 1598, and it was therefore written before that date. Nothing more definite as to the exact time of its -writing is available. It .was first printed in 1600 by Thomas Fisher, a young stationer in Fleet street. Another and more faulty copy, printed without license by James Roberts, appeared. It was from this latter edition that the folio of 1623, with some editing, was published. ‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream ’ is a play of fancy and a plea for fancy. Its fairy world is the world of playfulness, in which imagination is the substance and hard facts run into fantistic shapes that mock reality. The play is made to represent a dream within a dream, and in the inner dream arc sleepers whose dreams run into each other. Titania sleeps upon the bank where oxslips and, nodding violets grow.” Bottom sleeps under the hawthorn brake while waiting for his cue. Whethey they wake and meet or meet in dream within a dream’s dream, who shall say? It is, after all, the story of a mischievous little imp. Puck, who scrambles love affairs while the lovers sleep in the moonlight. Commentators | universally consider it a plea for people to forget the realities of life and give themselves over to blithe nonsense. There is an excellent cast of players, including James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, Jean Muir, and Anita Louise, GRAND None of the world’s great laboratories has ever seen such spectacular scientific experiments as arc shown in-‘ln-visible Ray,’ the Universal drama of mystery, science, and adventure which is at the Grand, with Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the starring roles. The story is laid in the year 1937, so as to include accomplishments on the very threshold of which science finds itself at the present moment. Perhaps the most spectacular of these is a development achieved- by Scientist Karloff in his isolated laboratory atop the Carpathian Mountains, where ho is able to. fill the great glass dome of the building with an actual reproduction of the movements of suns, stars, and other heavenly bodies exactly as they were millions, of. years ago. As the story proceeds, Karloff and his wife, Frances Drake, are members of an African expedition, which also includes Bela Lugosi, a bitter rival in scientific work; Frank Lawton, Beulah Bondi, and Walter Kingsford. In the Dark Continent this rivalry develops into implacable hatred when the others return to France with the details of Karloff’s discovery of Radium X, a hitherto unknown substance a thousand times more powerful than radium, taking with them Miss Drake, who has fallen in Love with Lawton. Later Karloff follows, and the intensely dramatic story finds him using the invisible ray from the deadly Radium X—the socallcd “ black light ” of science—■ against the others with terrible effect. The picture reaches its culmination in the strangest climax ever shown in motion pictures,, breath-taking in its fantastic horror.

STRAND Logical and plausible, the new Columbia action-drama of the outdoors, ‘ Justice of-the Range,’ starring Colonel Tim M'Coy, coming to-day to the Strand, is easily the best of a long line of Western films. Starting with a bang, the story immediately concerns itself with the range war between two rival ranches. There is a murder over some money that is vital to one rancher attempting to save his property. This disappears, and Tini M'Coy, seeking to, help, gathers cowboys to round up some cattle in an effort to get them to market in time to sell them and turn the proceeds over to their owner. But he is accused of both the murder and of rustling, and has to disappear. The action becomes whippet-fast, and the picture reaches a startling and unexpected climax. Romance is very capably supplied by the lovely Billie Seward, who is featured as M'Coy’s leading lady. This beautiful young actress shows a talent that bids fair to have her in starring roles in the very near future. The turbulent drama of a mad mutiny is the motivating theme of Columbia’s ‘Hell Ship Morgan,’ which is in support. The leading characters are Captain “ Hell Ship ” Morgan, played by George Bancroft; a waterfront waif, enacted by Ann Sothern, who marries the swashbuckling Morgan out of gratitude; and the handsome Victor Jory, Morgan’s first mate and third member of the emotional romantic triangle that grows out of their fateful meeting aboard the ship. GREEN ISLAND Warner Gland’s latest screen appearance' as that genial and philosophical Chinese sleuth, Charlie Chan—one of the most completely captivating detective heroes in the history of book or screen—takes place to-night at Green Island, when Fox Film’s latest vehicle for the inimitable Gland, Charlie Chau in Egypt,’ begins an engagement there. In this picture, the eighth of the famed Chan series, Fox Film has produced an ingeniously thrilling and baffling mystery, which met with hearty applause. from this reviewer, as well as last night’s audience. ‘ Charlie Chan in Egypt ’ is the biggest and most pretentions Chan picture ever made and carries the interest from sequence to sequence, with Stepin Fetchit adding much well-received comedy. ‘ Stormy Weather,’ the Gaumont-British comedy in support, is one of those hilarious farces for which Ben Travers has become famous. Four of the old Aldwych players are in the cast, Yvonee Arnaud appearing with the Walls-Lynn-Harc trio. There is an abundance of amusing dialogue and a series of diverting situations. It is a real “ laugh vehicle.” The comically absurd story and its bizarre Chinese underworld settings and atmosphere are a departure from the situations usually expected in a Travers farce. MAYFAIR The fascinating and talented Kay Francis is the featured player in ‘ I Found Stella Parish,’ now being shown at the Mayfair, and she justifies the heavy burden that has been placed upon her. She is well supported in the principal male roles, which are taken by Paul Lukas aiid lan Hunter, and there is a further appeal in the cast in the appearance of little Sibyl Jason, another of the juvenile “ finds ” which Hollywood is always springing on its public. This little player and Kay Francis provide the essence of the plot, and between them are responsible for genuinely pleasant entertainment. THREE ENTERTAINING FEATURES. Three attractions will make up tomorrow’s programme at the Mayfair, j The first film is ‘ Star of Midnight,’ with William Powell and Ginger Rogers starred. The picture is strong in story, brilliantly enacted, expertly directed, and handsomely mounted. Sparkling dialogue adds greatly to its thoroughly rounded entertainment. Powell, as Clay Dalzell, a brilliant attorney who is drawn into the solution of a perplexing mystery, and Miss Rogers, as Donna Mantin, a wilful young society beauty, who knows the man she wants to marry and how to get him, are seen at their best. Jackie Cooper is the star of ‘ Peck’s Bad Boy,’ and be will be seen as a boy who is nearly crowded out of his father’s life and affections through the plotting of an unprincipled aunt and her no less unprincipled son. Adults will find particular appeal in ‘ I’eck’s Bad Boy,’ it is believed. Every mother will seen in young Bill Peck her own son. . Every father will see himself. The programme will be concluded by the appearance of the popular child star, Shirley Temple, in the comedy, ‘ Pardon My Pups.’ LAURIER, PORT CHALMERS The thrill ancli romance of naval officers in the making, men who, in peace or in war, heroically brave death for their country, in their line of duty, is colourfiilly depicted in the new drama with music, ‘ Shipmates Forever,’ which commences to-day at the Laurior, Port Chalmers. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler head the cast. Dick personifies the raw cadet, somewhat spoiled, bub with the makings of a man, who is whipped into shape as a gallant officer through the rigor of the Naval Academy training, and Ruby, the loyal daughter of the navy. While the picture is not a musical, several now songs arc introduced by Powell in his role as a night club entertainer. The chief of them is a marching song, ‘ Don’t Give Up the Ship.’ In addition to those, Dick sings a number of famous old sea ballads, among them ‘ Abdul Abnlbnl Amir ’ ami ‘ Anchors A weigh.’ There is a talented supporting cast headed by Lewis Stone.