REGENT THEATRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 81, 29 December 1937, Page 5

REGENT THEATRE

"THEY GAVE HIM A GUN." With Spencer Tracy, Gladys George and Franchot Tone teamed in the leading roles, Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer's "They Gave Him a Gun" sereens at the Regent Theatre to-night. Tracy is seen at Fred Willis, cireus barker, in the adaptation of the William Joyce Cowen best-seller, while Franchot Tone plays the small-town book-keeper, Jimmy Davis, who turns raeketeer following the war. Gladys George is the Red Gross nurse, Rose Duffy, whom they both love. When Tracy is reported missing, she marries Tone, out of pity. Traey escapes from an enemy prison camp and the trio meets again in eivil life, with the war ended. Familiar now with the use of a gun, the weakling has become a gangster. Tracy tries to save him but fails. A police bullet gets in ahead of him. As a story and a picture to reflect the evils of war and its aftermath, "They Gave Him a Gun" is a powerful medium. It affords Tracy and his colleagues a>i opportunity for first rate artistry, which noue of them has overlooked. This is a story of war — but it is more than that. It mirrors the life in whieh we find ourselves. It pictures the living panorama in which the boys and girls of this generation find themselves, and it gives us a true vision of the effects of war on the generation that survived it.