ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 126, 27 April 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE. “THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL.” “They Made Me a Criminal,” which screens at the Meteor Theatre tonight, is a tense and exciting Warner Bros.’ drama with a prize-ring background that co-stars John Garfield and the “Dead End” kids in a east that also includes Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, May Robson and Ann Sheridan. Aside from its merits as entertainment, “They Made Me a Criminal” is noteworthy because it is the fol-low-up of Garfield, young newcomer from the New York stage,, to his sensational screen debut in “Four Daughters.” It is the answer of the Warner studio to the insistent, public demand that the brilliant young actor be raised to stardom immediately. It. presents Garfield as a lefthanded (this is important) prize fighter who, the day after lie lias won the lightweight championship of tlie world, learns by big stories in the newspapers that he is supposed to have murdered a newspaper reporter aild then been burned to death in an automobile accident while fleeing from the city. He drops out of sight, and finds his way across llio country. Eventually lie gets a job on an isolated California date orchard and falls in love with the niece of ,thc woman who owns the, ranch. Seeking to got some money for the two women, he gets into the ring with a barnstorming heavyweight who offers £IOO a round to anyone who can last against bun. This puts a suspicious detective on his trail, and leads to the thrilling and emotional dramatic finish. '1 ho picture, which was an adapatation by Sig Herzig of a novel by Bertram Millliauser and Beulah Mario Dix, was designed to exhibit, the full range of young Garfield’s talents as well as to give the popular “Dead End” kids an opportunity to cinch their hold on the public’s fancy with their very distinctive type of entertainment, The production was directed by Bushy Berkeley.

KOSY THEATRE. ■ “KENTUCKY.” Showing to-day at the Kosy Theatre, “Kentucky,” a 20ih Goutury-Fox production filmed in tcehnicolour, is a romance of the Blue Grass State, and it features in the leading roles Loretta Young, Richard Greene and Walter Brennan. Also included in the east are Douglas Dtiinbrille, Karen Morley and Moroni (llsc-n. “Kentucky" contains the most, spectacular climax of any picture in reicnt years as it presents, for the first time in i lie history of motion pictures, the Kentucky Derby filmed in terhnicolour. Much cf the picture was filmed on location in the heart of the Blue Grass country and the luxuriant beauty of the land where the thoroughbreds ream the meadows is reproduced on llio screen in complete naturalness through the perfection of ieelini* colour. Two of the most rnienteil rln’dreu in the entertainment business combined their highly specialised efforts in the making of

“Breaking (lie 'lee.” These children aro 11-year-old Bohby Breen and six-.vear-old Irene Dare. Breen, 'the star of the picture, and a top-ranking singer of radio and screen, sings five new numbers, in a story which lias an appeal both to youngsters and adults. Miss Dare, who is making her film debut in “Breaking the lee,” is the youngest figure-skater in the world, and before she was lured to Hollywood, was known throughout the Middle West ns “the tin by Roiija I lonic.” This child, with a record of starring in 17 ice-shows at; her early age. seems destined for top honours both in films and the link.