ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 222, 19 August 1937, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

REGENT THEATRE. “ROMANCE IN PARIS.” A new film star —handsome, talented, and infinitoly likeable—flashes across the screen of the Regent Theatre to-night and will win a multitudo of friends and 'admirers in his’' first American picture. He is Fernand Gravot, famous Continental film star, and the picture is “Romance in Paris,” a delightfully humorous romance, the first film which the brilliant young Warner Bros.’ director, Mervyn Leßoy, has made under his new rank as producer. You am going to hear and see a lot more of JVI. Gravot. Born in Belgium, educated in England, now a resident of France, he has starred in more than 25 foreign films and is the leading screen idol on the Continent to-day. Leßoy met him in Paris last summer, induced him to sign a long-term contract and brought him to Hollywood. “Romance in Paris” is glamorous whimsical comedy at its best. M. Gravot plays the role of a wealthy, profligate ex-monarch who becomes a Paris playboy. His titled aunt and undo try to put his royal feet on the straight and narrow path, but “King Alfred” loves the bright lights. Then he meets Joan Blondcll, in role of an American chorus girl. She is independent, high-spirited, rather impudent and cares not a whit for royally. The greater her disdain of her regal suitor, the more impetuous does his high-pressure courtship become. Humorous complications follow fast and furiously, aided by Edward Everett Horton, Mary Nash, Alan Morbray, Jane Wyman, Luis Alberni and other notables in the cast. There is never an idlo moment because the humorous dialogue and march of situations keep up tho swift pace. Dancing ? Of course. And in a lavishly mounted scene in Paris’s famous Folios Bcrgcre, tho intricacies of tho “can can” dance arc revealed. Music ? Most certainly! You’ll go out humming “For You” and “On the Rue de la Paix,” and you’ll fall in love with the baritone voice that is only one of M. Gravet’s_ many talents. Kenny Bake, radio favourite, does some of bis famous crooning. Werner R. Heyman composed • Gravct’s melodics abroad, and Ted Koehler wrote the The script eamo from Nonna Krasna, author of ‘“Little Miracle” and other screen hits, and Groucho Marx, of the merry, mail Marx family. Warners own Bobby Connollv staged the dance numbers. Tt all blends into a perfect entertainment—romance, glamour, comedy, music, dancing, and a new star who is headed for the topmost heights.

STATE THEATRE. “HOLLYWOOD COWBOY.” Screening finally to-night at the Slate Theatre is George O’Brien in the fast-mov-ing outdoor thriller, “Hollywood Cowboy. The samo programme screens a daring crime thriller “We Who Arc About to Dio.” “LOVE IS NEWS.” Tho streamline modern comedy of a private love affair whose kisses splash all over America’s front- pages and whose adventures sell extra editions, with Tyrone Power, Loretta Young and Don Auicche as the thrilling threesome stepping out in a fast-moving, high-stepping, springtimo romance, wins uproarious _ acclaim for the Twentieth Century-Fox picture, “Love is News,” a major offering which opens its Palmerston North season at tho _ Stato Theatre to-morrow. Setting a quick-fire, hilarious pace at tho very start, Director Tay Garnett lias produced a gay and different comedy romance of osensation-seck-ing newspapers and headline-dodging heiresses that brings now laurels to its ex-

ccllent cast, which features Slim Summerville, Dudley Digges, Walter Catlett, George Sanders, Jane Darwoll, Stepin Fetchit and Pauline Moore. Outromancing his brilliant role in "Lloyds of London,” Tyrone Power play 6 a thrilling lead opposite fresh and lovely Loretta Young, who brings a new grace to a portrayal that is engagingly different, with Don Amcchc outstanding in a vigorously exciting characterisation. Because he has just tricked her into another front-page story, heiress Loretta Young swears revenge on Tyrone Power, aco reporter for the New York Daily Express (managing editor: Don Ainccho). Determined that he 6hall know just how it fools to bo a newspapor “gold-fish-in-a-bowl,” with as little privacy as ho allowed her, Loretta announces to the papers that she is engaged to Tyrone, and adds that she has presented him with a million dollars. In. a flash the former newsgatherer is news himself and Tyrone becomes the target of a thousand linotypes and twico as many, salesmen. To force Lorotta to admit the hoax, he chases her out to the country only to find himself in an adjoining cell when they aro arrested for speoding. Riotously confusing and amusing, the story ascends to a stirring, madcap climax in which the widely publicised hoax becomes the private truth as the modern pair find themselves really in love. Tay Garnett directed the film, for which Darryl F. Zanuck, Twentieth Cen-tury-Fox vice-president in charge of production, selected Earl Carroll and Harold Wilson as associate producers.