WAIPAWA THEATRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 54, 19 March 1937, Page 6

WAIPAWA THEATRE

' British Agent"— Saturday and Monday . With Kay Franeis in th© role of a beautiful Eussian girl, "British Agent," the First National production which comes to the Regent, Waipawa, for screening to-morrow and Monday, Hollywood history again repeats itself. Five years ago she made her first picture oii Warner Bros.' lot in a pictur# called "The Notorious Affair, " fjor which she was followed from another studio. In this she played a Riissian girl of the same general type as her present role with Leslie Howard in "British Agent." Miss Franeis has'al5ways had a leanmg toward foreign chax1 acterisations, and in at least three of them has seored a notable success. She" was Tanya, a Russian girl, in "Mandalay"; Madame Colet, a French girl, in "Trouble in Paradise"; and a Serbian charmer in "Storm at Daybreak." The part in "Mandalay," which she made under her current contract, wa© considered by many one of her finest performances. In "British Agent" she is Elena, the sweetheart of the hero. I« this, she is mucli more than a mere roinantic interest, slnce most of the complications are the direct result of her machinations. Against a background of crashing forces reshaping the face of ■the earth. their own drama is joined with the greatest concerns of destiny. Elena plays a part that makes her I the centre of the British agent 's diffiI culties. The cast of "British Agent" is fast company even for such playere as Leslie Howard and Kay Franeis. The picture was inspired by the best selling author, R. H. Bruce Lockhart.