REGENT THEATRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 14, 1 February 1937, Page 3

REGENT THEATRE

LEWIS'S "DODSWOEIH." As a novel, Sinclair Lewis's "Dodsworth" was a best-seller. Adapted to the stage by Sidney Howard, witk Walter Huston in the title role, it was a smash hit and ran aimost two years on Broadway. Now, translated into ceiluioid by the same writer, and at the Regent to-day, with Huston agam playing Sam Dodsworth and given a magnificent production by Samuel Goldwyn, "Dodsworth" has found-its ideal form. Brilliantly acted by a perfect cast, headed by Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Mary Astor and David Iiven, this absorbing film tells the story of Sam Dodsworth, a hard-working, suceessful middle-VVes-tern business man who retires to travei. Sam looks to Europe as a place to rest and dabble jn culture, but to his pretty, selfish and adored wife Fran, (Ruth Chatterton) it means one last fling at romance before facmg middle age. They sail on the Queen Mary and after a series of flirtations on shipboard and in. Paris, - Fran meets Kurt Von Oberedorf, an impoverished youug Austrian aristocrat, who asks her lo marry him. She divprces Dodsworth who is left to wander miserably through Europe alone. In Italy he meets Mrs Cartright, a fine, sympathetic woman and they fall in love. When Fran 's plans fall through, she sehds for him and he gives up hie own happiness to join her. But the contrast with Mrs Cartright is too great. He sees Fran at last for what she really is and returns to the woman he loves.