ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 215, 11 August 1937, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

STATE THEATRE. “NANCY STEELE IS MISSING.” Unforgettably portrayed by the star of “The Informer,” and an inspired cast, “Nancy Steele is Missing,” the Twentieth Century-Fox production screening to-night at the State Theatre, presents a powerful drama, of vengeful hate balked by its own fury and punished by man’s greatest love. The performances of Victor McLaglen, winner of the Motion Picture Academy award for the best performance of 1935; Walter Connolly, outstanding actor of stage and screen; and Peter Torre, Europe’s one-man chamber of horrors, make “Nancy Steele is Missing” a tremendous document of emotionlashing power, filled with tense thrills and strong passions. Juno Lang and Robert Kent, rising young players, are featured in the film. The 20-vear span covered by the picture begins in the troubled days of 1917. when America was gripped by war hysteria. The daughter of Walter Connolly, a munitions magnate, sensationally disappears. Shortly afterwards, Victor McLaglen, a hulking giant whoso knowledge of the horrors of war has embittered him against all those who help to make it, becomes involved in a brawl with police, and because he is accused of being “pro-alien,” gets an unnecessarily severe gaol sentence. Taunted as a “spy’* by fellow prisoners, McLaglen is made the goat for an attempted prison break, and is sentenced to life. Only a shrewd cell-mate, the calculating Peter Lorre, suspects that the huge prisoner is concealing his true character. “BORDER CAFE.” A colourful romantic triangle between a headstrong young New Engander, his former fiancee, and a Mexican girl whom he meets in a frontier “cantina,” form the lore interest of “Border Cafe,” RKO Radio’s new film drama, with Harry Carey and John Beal sharing the top roles, and Armida, the alluring Mexican dancer, in the fomiline lead.

REGENT THEATRE. “EVELYN PRENTICE.” Life’!* most, potent dramas are wrung from the courfcroms. Thus, realising the value of story material to be found in American courtrooms, Metro GolchvynMayer studios again have teamed William Powell and Myrna Loy for the third successive timo, this time in the gripping courtroom drama, “Evelyn Prentice, which screens nl the Regent Theatre tomorrow. Murder, divorce, .criminal plots of every kind, physical and spiritual victory, ruined careers, despair, heartaches, frustrated ambitions, tragedy and humour —all these and many more stark realities of life serve as inspiration for literary, stage and screen masterpieces. It is such a story that brings Powell and Miss Loy, accepted as the ideal husband and wife of the screen, to the theatre public for the third time. Their first appearance together was in “Manhattan Melodrama Powell a<s the gamin of the slums who rose to become the Governor of a great Stale and confronted with the ordeal of condemning his childhood pi av ma to to the electric chair: Miss I/oy as tho woman he had wVon from that friend, to make her his wife. The success of this picture demanded a return of the Powoll-Loy team. Their second picture was the rollicking film of Dashiell Hammetts humorous detective novel, “ r lhc Thin Man.” After that there was no escaping a third teaming of Powell and Miss Loy. And now they again appear as husband and wife in the screen version of AV. E. AVoodward’s powerful novel of the courtrooms, “Evelyn Prentice.” As in their previous pictures, Powell and Miss Loy nave been given an excellent supporting cast, including Una Merkel. Henry Waclswortb, Harvey Stephens, Isabel Jewell, Rosalind Russell, Edward Brophy, Cora Sue Collins and Jessie Ralph.