AMUSEMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 227, 7 September 1933, Page 5

AMUSEMENTS

ARCADIA TALKIES, HASTINGS “SHANGHAI EXPRESS.” Screening at the Arcadia to-night and to-morrow is the greatest Paramount production of the year, ‘‘.Shanghai Express,” featuring beautiful Marlene Dietrich, as the heroine, and Clive Brook The picture opens with the Shanghai Express at Pekin starting on its journey to Shanghai, Down the platform is a company of Chinese soldiers. There is danger in the air, for the rebels have threatened to attack the train. Among the motley group of passengers from all lands who board the express are Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich), notorious adventuress, stylish and attractive, known everywhere as ‘‘the white flower of the Chinese coast.” Henry Chang, a Eurasian merchant, Hue Fei, an American educated Chinese girl, and Captain Donald Harvey (Clive Brook), British captain of the medical corps. Harvey was once in love with Shanghai Lily, but he now has lost interest, because of her bad reputation. The rebels hold up the train shortly after leaving Pekin and Chang is revealed as the leader of the rebels. Incensed because nationals have captured one of his spies, he holds the passengers as hostages and on the return of the rebel, refuses to release Harvey and threatens to blind him. Shanghai Lily makes overtures to the rebel, who agrees to release Harvey if she will stay with linn. How the young Chinese girl Hue Fei stabs the rebel chief and the passengers eventually escape make a thrilling and romantic story. COSY THEATRE, HASTINGS “IT’S GREAT TO BE ALIVE” HILARIOUS COMEDY “It’s Great to bo Alive,” the new Fox musical comedy, has its first screening at the Cosy Theatre, Hastings, tonight. tl will be shown only to-night and to-morrow. Raul Roulien, idol of the South American stage and screen, has the stellar role, and is surrounded by a large group of performers that includes all the most beautiful womep of the Hollywood film colony. The story concerns itself with the strange Situation of one solitary male in a world of millions of women. All men but this one are -wiped off the globe, and the conjecture about “the last man on earth” becomes a reality. The fact that this one man happens to be a popular aviator who has been cast away on a desert island, is said to contribute heavily to the hilarity. The supporting cast, headed by Gloria Stuart, Edna May Oliver and Herbert Mundin, includes Joan Marsh, Dorothy Burgess, Emma Dunn, Edward Van Sloan and Robert Greig. More than 1000 of Hollywood’s most gorgeous girls take part in the production, which launches Raul Roulien on a career of American screen stardom. William Kernel), who Inis a number of established song-hits to his credit, is responsible for the music and the lyrics in “It’s Great, to be Alive.” Among his new songs to be heard in this film are “Goodbye, Ladies,” “I’ll Build a Nest,” “It’s Great to bo The Only Man Alive” and “Women! Women! Women!”

MUNICIPAL THEATRE, HASTINGS “ UNDER COVER MAN.” At the Municipal Theatre, Hastings, to-night and to-morrow night, George Raft, sensational young screen player, has the leading role in “Under-Cover Man,” a Paramount drama centring around a gang of bond thieves who operate on a big scale. Also in the picture are Nancy Carroll, Roscoe Karns, Lew Cody and Gregory Ratoff in the supporting cast. Raft is cast as a crook who gambles with his own life and the life of the girl he loves to hunt down the slayers of his father. He offers his services to the police as an under-cover man, in order to bring the murderer to justice, and in so doing, realises that he is a doomed man if his underworld cohorts discover his connection. Miss Carroll, whose brother, a bank messenger, has been killed in a bond robbery by the same gang, joins Raft to gain her own revenge, and the results that follow when their combined forces get under way are rapid and dramatic. Gregory Ratoff, remembered for his roles in ‘‘Symphony of Six Million,” “What Price Glory,” “Once in a Lifetime” and other films, gives his usual' finished performance as Martoff, one of the bond thieves.