AMUSEMENTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20031, 1 September 1939, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS

REGENT THEATRE CLAUDETTE COLBERT AND DON AMECHIE IN “MIDNIGHT” The smart, modern comedy makes a welcome return in “Midnight,” the new attraction at the Regent Theatre, starring Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche. Played against an almost fanciful, glittering background of Paris society life, “Midnight” is an amusing, entertaining, and exciting even if the bounds of possibility are sometimes ignored. Cast as a penniless American entertainer, Miss Colbert is shown arriving at Paris at night in the pouring rain without a penny to her name. A handsome but poor taxi-driver (Don Ameche) takes her under his wing, only to lose her again when she crashes into a society music party and is taken for a Hungarian coUntess. Caught in a romantic intrigue, she continues to be a countess for a while, revelling in fur coats and motor cars' supplied,by a gentleman who enlists her help in smoothing out hiy own difficulties. Her job is to attract a wealthy and handsome young man '.(Francis Le'derer) away from the kindly gentleman’s wife, and unfortunately she does the job too well, and the man she has lured to her side is hard to get rid of. When her erstwhile taxi-driver appears on the scene in a hired evening suit and passes himself off as the count, her husband, matters are further complicated, Some farcical scenes at a country mansion and in a French divorce court are seen at the end of, the film. The supporting programme includes a beautiful presentation , by 1 a leading American symphony orchestra of Schubert’s -‘Unfinished Symphony."

MAJESTIC THEATRE

“HOTEL IMPERIAL,” AND “WHILE

NEW YORK SLEEPS.”

Thrilling romance and drama, born amid the turmoil of a world at war, marks “Hotel Imperial,” which will head to-day’s new programme at the Majestic Theatre. Featuring the American film debut of the lovely Isa Miranda, a reigning favourite of the European stage and screen, and notable also for. the occasional song offerings of the Don Cossack choir, the film presents a cast of well-proven players, including Ray -Milland, who himself an ex-Guardsman in England, plays a role entirely in keeping with his dashing style. Danger and chaos in an area disputed by Austrian and Russian troops in I£>l6 form the .background for many brilliant spectacle sequences. /Miranda is seen as a fiery Continental beauty, somewhat in the manner of Dietrich at her best, who'works at the hotel as a maid, with the Object of finding cut why her sister killed herself. She suspects that a dashing Polish-born officer in the Austrian forces is the man whom she seeks. After planning to give him up to the authorities, for he has been separated from his regiment and ’is forced to .pose as a waiter behind the enemy lines, she learns her mistake in time to plead for his life, and the story moves to a climax with the arrival of the real criminal, a spy, a part played by J. Carrol 'Naish. Those reckless roving reporters, Michael Whalen and Chick Chandler, -are in again. This time the nonesuch newshounds. do theirs work. .in -“While New • York Sleeps,” which involves the boys in. a murder so mystifying that it has to be solved 'twice. In fact, the boys get the ■ police on their own trail when they Tmd. themselves in the embarrassing ; position of having solved the crime before, it- was committed —and then ' find the “victim” murdered a second time.. The programme opens with the third chapter of the Buck Rogers’ ' serial.

KING'S THEATRE

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS” The grey moors of Yorkshire, an ancient house rendered spectral by a love_ tragedy, a glimpse in the eerie darkness of the ghostlike form of a weman —and but into the nighi, never to return, rushes the gaunt lover, in pursuit of the wraith of the woman for whom he has waited. Divided between loyalty to her husband and the weird fascination of the other man, she had died years before in the latter’s arms, whereupon he himself had. proclaimed that he was the cause of her death, and he had invited her to come back from the after-life and to haunt him. Much more than that is found in the story o£ “Withering Heights,” but endugh has been said to indicate a complex of mysticism, of personal magnetism on its sex side, or perhaps of pre-ordained fate. The heroine of “Wuthering Heights” is two women alternately, /and sometimes almost at once. She (Merle Oberon) is the dutiful wife of her husband in home and in drawingroom, but out on the Yorkshire moors the witchcraft of wild, grey places lays hold of her and she is the passionate adorer of her baseborn lover (Laurence Olivier.) This problem of a woman’s divided soul is very old and ever new. Emily Bronte,.herself one of the most mystic features of the Bronte tradition, created the novel * Wuthering Heights,” and Sameul Goldwyn created the picture of the same name which opens its season to-day at the King’s Theatre. The two principals. Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, are the pivot of the story, but the picture owes much to a strong supporting cast. To-day, just a s for the last 80 years critics regard the novel as an enigma and Emily Bronte herself is regarded as the most enigmatic of the three literary Bronte sisters. She had had mystic experiences' before her death at 30 years, in 1848. DODGEMS STEED AND FUN At Miller’s Speedway fresh competitions are run each day and these add to the pleasure and excitement of driving a .small electric car at speed in the company of other cars also travelling at a good pace. Presence of mind and deft driving are necessary to avoid collisions.