PICTURE THEATRES

Evening Star, Issue 23681, 14 September 1940, Page 8

PICTURE THEATRES

THE NEW PROGRAMMES THRILLS A-PLEHTY STRAND OFFERS EXCITEMENT Revealing the work of G-Men as they fioht to halt spy activity and prevent theft of vital military plane designs from United States aircraft factories. Universal’s timely film ‘ Enemy Agent opened yesterday at the Strand. It is supported by ILE.F.’s exciting drama 6f Chicago’s gangland, ‘ Gangs of Chicago,’ and the two films combine to provide unusually exciting entertainment.^ For sheer “newspaper headline realism, suspense, and fast action, few pictures have more to otter than ‘ Enenry Agent.’ Featuring Richard Cromwell, Helen Vinson, Robert Armstrong, and Jack La Rue, the story is told in and around the giant aircraft factories of Southern California Although the story is described as fictional, it shows how enemy spies might gain employment in these giant aircraft factories and then carry out sabotage while trying to steal blueprints of the bomb-sight and advance warplane designs. Richard Cromwell portrays the young aircraft draughtsman who is unjustly accused of selling military secrets. Helen Vinson has the role of a Federal Bureau of Intelligence operative assigned to the case. Robert Armstrong is seen as a G-man on tbe trail of eiieinv agents, and Philip Dorn, noted Dutch-Holland actor, plays the suave and brilliant spy ring bead. Others in the cast include Jack Carson, Jack Arnold, Marjorie Reynolds, and Bradley Page, ... , , . Cromwell turns in one of his most convincing performances as the young plane draughtsman who fights to clear himself of spy charges, while Helen Vinson is excellent as the pretty secret service operative. ■ The associated film, 1 Gangs of Chicago,’ is a fitting introduction-to the thrilling ‘ Enemy Atient.’ In this, gangsters, guns, bad deeds, and all the evil connections of the underworld life of Chicago arc brought together as opposition forces to peace, law, and order. In brief, the story relates the struggle of one man, whose father has been killed by the police, to “ get even” with society. It would not be fair to disclose here bow' his objective is attained.: Lloyd Nolan plays the avenger with his usual suavity, and ho ihas -as feminine load Lola Lane, the young star who is fast approaching tho heights rof fame. Barton Mae Lane and Ray Middleton are also seen in important roles. DRAMA OF MENTAL CONFLICT DOROTHY LAMOUR’S GREATEST RULE • Disputed Passage,’ which opened a season at tho llegeut yesterday, has been one of the most ta!ked-of pictures of the past year. Featuring Dorothy Lamour, Akim Tamiroff aid Job ll Howard in the priuicpal roles, the film gives each of these artists ample opportunity to display his or her best. Ihe istory is from the pen of Lloyd C. Douglas and is a drama of mental conflict and devotion to an ideal. The theme revolves around a great doctor who chooses a particular _ student as the best man to follow in his footsteps. The fact'that there is a bitter hatred between the two does not interfere with their professional relationships, but the younger man commits the unforgivable sin of falling in love with a patient. The Remainder of the story is worked our in wartorn China and the climax is most unusual. Though this story is tensely dramatic it has human warmth about it that is out of the ordinary, and it will be welcomed by all those who want a picture that is outstanding and that possesses all the essentials demanded by those who love humanity. Digging deep beneath the surface ol human motives and emotions, Paramount’s ‘Disputed Passage,’ tells u story that is a realistic! exposition of the experience of a young doctor—a story that ranks with ‘ I hoCitadel 1 and ‘ Men in White,’ for sheer drama, power, and a realistic outlook on life. Dorothy Lamour is seen us an American girl who has been reared in China by native foster-parents. Her wrnrk on behalf of the invaded Chinese has brought her to America, where she meets and falls in love with Howard, brilliant young doctor. Akim Tamiroff, portraying a_ world-famous surgeon who worships science as a god, has been largely responsible for the young doctor’s success and firmly believes that a wife will destroy his protege’s career. When Tamiroff learns that the youngsters have fallen in love, he persuades Miss Lamour that marriage would ruin her fiance’s career. No man can concentrate properly when his mind is beset by doubts and anxieties, he claims. Believing she sees an analogy in her owa life and : in her work for China, Miss Lamour leaves her hotel without seeing Howard and disappears. That night Howard receives a cryptic telegram: “ We must follow our separate paths—you toward your goal, I toward mine. Good-bye.” The young doctor is a changed man. His heart is no longer in his work. Day after day he gazes dreamily from the laboratory windows. Tamiroff, trying to shake him from his dilerana, accidentally reveals the true cause of his betrothed’s departure. The drama becomes more tense and excitingly timely when the locale of the story shifts to war-torn China._ Major credit is due Miss Lamour for her human characterisation of the •American girl of Oriental background. It is her first straightforward dramatic role and should widen her already largo field of admirers. Tamiroff manifests a keen understanding for the subtle undertones required in his portrayal of an illustrious but narrow scientist, ami in such good company John Howard does not lag behind. There is an excellently varied programme of shorter subjects in support. SHIRLEY TEMPLE STARRED ERROL FLYNjM IN EPIC WESTERN Shirley Temple has the finest role of her career in ‘ Susannah of the Mounties,’ which is tho main attraction on the new programme at the Mayfair to-day. The film, a light romance of the Canadian North-west Mounted Police, has Margaret Lockwood (‘lhe Lady Vanishes ’), Randolph Scott, and Victor Jory in the featured cast. An epic of the west, ‘ Dodge City,’ supports, with Errol Flynn in tho stellar role. Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, and Bruce Cabot are supporting players in this gripping drama. It tolls'of the rise to prominence-of Dodge City—“ the biggest little town in tbe west.” Rcd-bloodcd action is tbe keynote.

EPIC AFTER-PRISON FILM ' INVISIBLE STRIPES ’ AT EMPIRE The title, ‘ Invisible Stripes,’ indi'cates something of what the film screening at the Empire this week is about. But it does not reveal that the director is Lloyd Bacon—a sure guarantee of neat, swift action—or that the east is chiefly composed of people who can act some of the “ bigger ” names right off the screen. Humphrey Bogart is in it, for instance, and Flora Hobson, William Holden (who made such an impression in Clifford Odot’s ‘ Golden Boy’), George Raft, Paul Kelly, and the sinister Marc Laurence. Such a cast could not make a bad film if it tried. The story opens on the day that Cliff Taylor (George Raft) and Cluck Martin (Humphrey Bogart) are released from Sing Sing Prison, Taylor on parole for good behaviour and Martin after serving his full five-year sentence. Cliff, after his first experience of crime and prison, is determined to go “ straight,” but Chuck has been in and out before, and is just as determined to take what he can get from a world that has shown him no favours. As a parolee, Cliff has great difficulty in fulfilling one of the terms of his release —that he shall get a job and settle down to work. Nothing would please him better than to be able to do that, but even when his younger brother Tim (William Holden) gets him a place at the garage where he works himself it does not last long. The boss is nervous about his cash register, and soon puts Cliff off Everywhere it js the same tale, month after month. No one wants to employ an ex-convict. But a cnance does come, and Cliff, starting in a boy’s job, soon rises to a good position, and is able to give his mother (Flora Robson) some of the small pleasures that she deserves. It is only the calm before the storm, however. On the night of the staff dance there is a big robbery from the store in which Cliff is working, and in a matter of minutes he is “ picked up ” by the police and gaoled to await questioning. Young Tim, who has been having a hard and heart-breaking struggle to save up enough to be able to marry Peggy (Jane Bryan), tries to borrow enough money for a bail bond Irora his employer, gets angry at a refusal, and is discharged. As it happens, Cliff is released, but his brother’s experience and his own insecurity tempt him into association with Chuck Martin in order to get enough quick money to set iim up. in a business of his own. The quick money comes from bank' robberies, and when enough has been obtained to buy a garage Cliff decides to leave the gang. They have other ideas, however, and the rather uneasy alliance is broken off with throats on ■loth sides. The gang attempts another robbery, is beaten off by armed guards, and uses Tim’s garage as a hide-out, telling him that his brother is involved. How Cliff solves this horrible problem makes a dramatic finish to a dramatic story. If this sort of show is liked film goers can be sure of their money’s worth at the Empire. The supporting programme is equal to the high standard of the major attraction, comprising ‘Porky’s Picnic (a cartoon), ‘Hats and Dogs’ (Winifred Shaw musical comedy), ‘Artie Shaw and Orchestra’ (musical), and the latest overseas news items. ‘ REBECCA ' CONTINUES BRILLIANCE OF DU MAURIER PLOT Outstanding films are much more common to-day than they were three or four years ago, thanks to ever-improv-ing screen technique and the use of superlatives does not always do such a production the justice it may deserve. And superlatives, oven the most highsounding, would fail to convey an idea of the merit of ‘ Rebecca,’ the powerful screen dramatisation of Daphne du Manner's celebrated novel, which continues its season at the Octagon. In conception, treatment, and the work of 11 lo cast it is brilliant from start to finish. It is a faithful adaptation of the book, with its mood of quiet brooding, transferred to tho screen by David Sclznick, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Acting honours go equally to Lawrence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. As Max do Winter, the scion of a Cornish family, whoso first wife, Rebecca, died, Olivier repeats his triumph of ‘ Wuthering Heights.’ Miss Fontaine shows a new side of her ability as an actress; she is dramatic. In the early scenes when she acts as the paid companion of a vulgar American woman, she reveals to the audience a youthful and refreshing charm of a sort which is rare on the screen. - This poor creature, soon to become the mistress of the sombre Manderley, has no self-confi-dence. Circumstances have made her an underling, and she accepts the lot without question. Yet she manages to disclose that, beneath the surface manner of anxious subservience, the girl lias real quality in her character. The gradual unfolding of this deeper charm —the development of personality and self-esteem —is exquisitely set forth. ' The whole story, however, is dominated by the spirit of a dead woman, tho beautiful, brilliant, and intelligent first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, whoso presence and personality meet her successor at every turn. The initial R. on handkerchiefs, pillow slips, and stationery, tho closed west wing of the huge house where Rebecca slept, are all insurmountable objects to the attainment of the young girl’s dream —to make her moody, brooding husband forget the tragedy in his life. And above all there is Mrs Danvers, the inscrutable housekeeper, whose,devotion to the dead Rebecca makes her hate the second Mrs de Winter with a smouldering hate. The short supporting programme is headed by ‘ Newsfronts of War —1940, tho latest of the ‘ March of Time’ scries, dealing in interesting fashion with the assembly and distribution of the latest international news by the Associated Press of America. CHARLIE CHAN AGAIN JONES FAMILY COMEDY SUPPORTS A fiendish plot to destroy the Panama Canal and trap the fleet in the wrecked locks is the challenge faced by tho famous Earl Derr Diggers, sleuth in ‘ Charlie Chan in Panama,’ which is at the Grand The storv opens on a note of suspense in tho Canal zone on the eve of the U.S. fleet’s passage through the cut. Rumours of sabotage are r ife—so well is the Canal’s defence system prepared that attack from land, sea, or air is almost impossible, but sabotage is still a dire possibility. Incognito in the snspense-lillod zone is Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) on an assignment to prevent a suspected plot to none the*Canal and bottle up the fleet, thus preventing passage of the navy from the Pacific to the Atlantic, The depression came late to the Jones Family, but it hit hard. Dad’s laid up,

their home is gone, and they have only their trailer and family car in the Twentieth Century-Fox film, ‘On Their Own,’ which is in support, lint you cannot keep a good Jones down, and when tlie depression threatens to whip the whole family—well, they trade their car and trailer for a bungalow r court and end up having more Inn than ever. GINGER ROGERS—COMEDIENNE * FIFTH AVENUE GIRL ' AT THE STATE When an unspoiled, philosophical working girl, temporarily unemployed, is set loose in a Fifth Avenue mansion to readjust the lives of its pampered and seltish occupants, a revolution is born, as evidenced in the amusing thematic treatment of Ginger Rogers's starring KKO Radio comedy-drama, ‘ Fifth Avenue Girl,’ which opened at the State yesterday. Very different from Miss Rogers’s recent ‘Bachelor Mother,’ but even funnier at times, the new picture becomes hilarious as it revolves around the manifold activities of the Bordens in their Fifth Avenue home facing Central Park. The father, who has made millions with his pump-manufacturing company, suddenly realises that his family thinks of him only as a one-man mint. His wife is carrying ou with a playboy, plans to go to Reno and get a divorce. His son neglects the business to -play polo. His daughter travels with a dizzy crowd of nit-wits, but is in love with the Borden’s class-conscious chauffeur. And when, after a tough day at the office, Borden comes home hoping they will at least remember it’s his birthday, he finds they have forgotten that, too, and have gone elsewhere for the evening. Despondent, he strolls into the park and encounters a jobless, but cheerful, working girl. He joins her, enjoys her colourful attitude of life, her scorn of the rich, and after a hectic evening of night-clubbing, takes her home with him as a guest, .Her presence scandalises the wife, amuses the daughter—but it centres the family- attention on the father for the first time in years. Accordingly, he secretly hires her to stay and help him put on an elaborate act, calculated to unite bis disintegrating home. Under protest, she agrees —but the results are somewhat unexpected. She finds herself mixed up in the daughter’s romance, and as the object of the son’s exasperations as well as interest, while the mother frantically tries every method to bring her husband to his senses. The upshot of it is that the whole family has its respective troubles solved, although the process nearly makes a wreck out of the solver, and the picture takes its stand as one of the season s most sprightly offerings. In the part of the girl who is destined to guide the industrial nabob, Ginger Rogers has a part made to order, and she proves herself as clover a comedienne as ever she was a dancer. Walter Connolly, the corpulent screen actor, recognised as one of the cleverest character comedians in Hollywood, plays the harassed and discouraged millionaire to perfection. James Ellison, who has acquired a wide following as a leading man on the screen, temporarily forsakes straight heroic, roles for an amusing character study as a disgruntled proletarian chauffeur. Lesser parts arc equally well taken. . . The featnrettes are as entertaining as the main picture, and the Walt Disney Donald cartoon, ‘The Autograph Hound,’ is irresistibly funny. Donald, of course, gets into trouble —and out of it—with astonishing ease, but the respective steps are side-splitting to watch. Several of the latest news* reels, which reveal the terrible trend of events in the Old World, are of supreme m r terest at the preSfent time. LAUGHTER WEEK BRIGHT FUN AT THE ST. JAMES The management lias designated this Laughter Week at the St. James, and the appellation is by 119 means uncalled for. 'two genuinely hilarious comedies are offered the public, each containing more laughs than a Lord Haw-Haw broadcast from Germany. Hugh Herbert is starred in ‘ La Conga Nights, an exceptionally entertaining ninsica , while theVjver-popular Sandy 1 owell steals the thunder in ‘Homo I'rom Home.’ ■ , , . With Hugh Herbert playing seven different roles and fighting to steal comedy scenes from himself, universal s ‘ La Conga Nights ’ is decidedly out ol the ordinary. Spilling laughter and rapid-fire “ gags n through every scene, the film reveals Herbert playing his mother, his grandfather, and a quartet of dizzy sisters in addition to “ himself.” Destined to rank as one of the funniest pictures of the year, ‘ La Conga Nights ’ is generously sprinkled with lilting- music, new songs, and gay dance routines. Constance litoore as a pretty singer out of a job, and Dennis O’Keefe in the role of a dancing taxi-driver are youthful and refreshing, in well-played, roinantic roles. But it is Herbert who keeps the laughs bubbling forth from beginning to end. The story concerns an eccentric millionaire with a “ yen for rhumba music who is orderd about by four bossy sisters who, of course, are portrayed by Herbert. How he takes refuge in a boarding house because musicians live there, and how lie helps the penniless guests open their own Conga Club, results in fantastic and hilarious comedy situations. Eventually Herbert asserts himself and sets liis sisters and his mother to work playing instruments in ft red-hot rhumba orchestra. That Herbert makes each of tlie seven characters different and equally amusing is a credit to his comedv genius. The story of ‘ Home From Home is amusing, and is rendered doubly so by Sandy Powell’s internreta.tion of tlie main role—that of a lonely and miserable man who finds bis first happiness when be is lodged in prison on the charge of embezzlement which be did not commit. When, eventually, bis innocence is proved and he is released Sandy determines to got back into the prison cell to partake of regular meals, comfortable clothes, and sentence —only to learn almost immediately that be lias been granted a free pardon. But there is a girl on the horizon now, and suddenly Sandy decides it migbt be ns well to keep out of prison, and this leads nn to an entertaining climax. Sandy is himself as ever, which means that he is an excellent comedian whoso very expressions are provocative of lamditer. Rene Ray pin vs opposite him. and very nice she is too Others include Rov Rmerton, Kathleen Harrison, and Sandy’s own harmonica band.