REGENT THEATRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20125, 20 December 1939, Page 3

REGENT THEATRE

ROBERT YOUNG & ANNABELLAIN “BRIDAL SUITE”

Delighted audiences at all sessions were highly amused by the brilliant comedy, “Bridal Suite,” which opened a season at the {Regent Theatre yesterday. Robert Young, who proved his penchant for comedy in ''Honolulu” and "Romance For Three,” is the leading player and the chief inspiration of the hilarious plot. He takes the part of Neil McGill, a pampered but charming playboy who refuses to wed the girl of his mother’s choice. Thinking her boy must be ill, the mother takes him to the Swiss Alps in search of a psychoanalyst. The role of the latter is played by Walter Connolly, who. is called upon to register alternating suspicion, dislike, discomfiture and, on rare occasions, triumph. .He is ignored, however, by Neil McGill, who has found a new interest in the person of an innkeeper’s daughter. Their romance, which grows front a mild flirtation to a sincere devotion, does not proceed smoothly in the face of some incomparably amusing incidents in the Alps and the continual fear of McGill that at any time lie may be claimed by his jilted fiancee. Annabels, the attractive French actress, appears as the innkeeper’s daughter, and her vivacious personality is eminently suited to the part. Billie Burke is, as usual, irresistibly amusing as a flighty society woman who is also McGill’s mother. Other players, all well known as comedians, are Reginald Owen, Arthur Treacher. Gene Lockhart and Virginia Field. —Friday: Empire Drama, “The Sun Never Sets” —

“The Sun Never Sets,” an Empire picture reflecting the life and books of such Enjpire-minded Englishmen as Sir Harry Johnston, and in key with

the Kipling ideal will open a threeday season at the Regent on Friday. The picture is outstanding both for its tribute to English Imperial tradition and for its entertainment value. Entertainment value is a thing that, a picture cannot do without, and therefore an imaginative Nazi nest of infamy is set up in British Africa and is most sensationally bombed out of existence, with devastating effect to everybody except the hero, Douglas Fairbanks, jun., who has come through this kind of scrape before. But. with every concession to thrill and to “action,” “The Sun 'Never Sets” remains a picture with a purpose, and a constructive purpose. It shows how the Empire in coloured tropical regions is still being built up in the spirit of Kipling’s "Song of the English.” Those picturegoers who want anti-Nazism served hot will find a pretty villain in Zurof, played by Lionel Alwill, and the bombing of Zurof's African stronghold, with its secret radio station, is an air-thrill masterpiece, In fact. “The Sun Never Sets” has something to meet all tastes, but the high Empire purpose of the picture remains.