AMUSEMENTS

Grey River Argus, 16 November 1948, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS

At the Opera House Now Showing: “Fighting Father Dunne,” starring Pat O’Brien. How a militant priest makes a career of providing for homeless boys forms the theme of R.K.O.’s new starring vehicle for Pat O’Brien “Fighting Father Dunne,” now showing at the Opera House Theatre, with Darryl Hickman, Una O’Connor, Joe Sawyer, Charles Kemper and Arthur Shields in featured roles. Based on the real-life story of the noted St. Louis pastor whose Newsboys’ Home grew into a famous institution, the picture its drama and its humour out o± the struggles of Father Peter Dunne to establish and carry on his project. Beginning with three waifs whom ne takes under his wing, the P r {est nnds a home for them in a shabby old house, and steadily adds to his nock. Kindly neighbours and charitable tradesmen help him out, but before long the home has become too big for him to handle alone. How he persuades a group of business men to finance an adequate building for his hundreds of “guests, and how, despite an occasional failure, he has the satisfaction of seeing his boys grow up to become, respectable citizens, leads to the picture’s climax. Regent Shows Now Showing: “Summer Holiday,” starring Mickey Rojoney, Gloria De Haven, Walter Huston, Frank Morgan. “Summer Holiday,” M.G.M.’s technicolour musical, is based on Eugene O’Neill’s play, “Ah, Wilderness!” which described in nostalgic terms the pleasures of small-town life in the early 1900’s, and particularly the case history of young Richard Miller who tries to carry the problems of the whole world on his frail shoulders. Mickey Rooney is Richard Miller, confronted with the difficulties of making his adoration articulate to eager but shy Muriel, played by Gloria D e Haven; experiencing his first taste of worldly wisdom when he falls into the clutches of worldwise Belle (Marilyn Maxwell). Rooney and Miss De Haven are superb in the role of the adolescent pair. Walter Huston and Frank Morgan are expertly cast in the respective roles of Richard’s baffled father and the mischievous . Uncle Sid. Butch Jenkins is responsible for many of the picture’s laughs as the family’s youngest off-spring.