ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 162, 8 June 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

MAYFAIR THEATRE. “HOME FROM IIOA1E.” A great favourite the world over, by virtue of his unique comedy radio recordings and his oft-repeated slogan, “Can You Hear Mo.'.Mother?” Sandy Powell has already starred in two comedies,' “It’s a Grand Old World” and “I’ve Got a Horse,” and his “Home From Home, which' is now showing at the. Alaylair Theatre, will take him, further up the ladder of fame. This time Sandy takes the role of a convict who is glad enough to remain in prison out of the way of his domineering wife, who continually nags aim to find work and not lo liq in bed half the dfty. When Sandy is pardoned and has to go homo the trouble starts, all over again, especially as lie had collected ,an out of work violinist and a glamorous cabaret star oil the way. Gone Autry’s new picture, which is now showing at the Mayfair Theatre, is called “Yodelin’ Kid from Pine Ridge,” and as usual the amiable Smiley Burnette is the hero’s companion in new and exciting adventures. The story tells ’ of an estrangement between Autry and his father because they elect to take different sides in a cattle war. Autry leaves Pine Ridge and his sweetheart to seek adventure. Great, cities topple, a terrible iron robot is destroyed in “To Destroy the World,” the twelfth and concluding episode of “The Phantom Creeps,” flaring 12-chapter Universal serial which , conies to a breath-taking climax to-day at the Alayfair Theatre. STATE THEATRE. “SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON." One of the best loved of all story classics, Johann David Wyss’ “Swiss Family Robinson,” shows to-day at the Slate Theatre. The screen version is infinitely more vivid and realistic and exciting than any possible arrangement of words oil paper could be. And its producers, the noted screenwriting team of Gene Towne and Graham Baker, are entitled to plenty of plaudits for their skilful cinematic rendition of Wyss’ immortal book. Opening in London during the Napoleonic period when all Europe was jittery with war alarms, the story tells how William Robinson, Swiss clockmaker, sees his four boys growing up to he useless snobs, his wife interested only to make men of his sons if it can be in her shallow social pleasures. Determined to make men of his 1 sons if it can he done, Robinson sells out his business, embarks with his rebellious wife and offspring on an Australia-bound brig and plans to build a new life. But the brig is wrecked in a storm and the Robinsons, the sole survivors, ferry themselves, to a nearby tropic island along with a few barnyard animals. How the marooned sextette pit themselves successfully against the lortes of nature and Jio\v the boys become selfreliant and upstanding .young men while the wife eventually comes to understand her husband’s ideals, along with a brilliant series of adventures and experiences, make up the absorbing drama. KOSY THEATRE. “CONE TO THE DOGS.’ “Gone to the Dogs,” starring George Wallace, tells the story of a pleasant little man who accidentally discovers a miraculous speeding-up tonic for racing greyhounds, and the rip-roaring story portrays his antics as (he formula disappears, the champion dog is kidnapped, he loses his girl and gets trapped in a haunted house. So when everything ends happily, it is only after our-dog-loving hero has run the gamut of every guffaw known to hysteria. “Gone to the Dogs” is the second production in which George Wallace has, appeared for Cinesound. “Wings of the Navy,” a Warner Bros.Cosmopolitan production, which is declared to be by far the best to date of the remarkable succession of “service” pictures turned out at that studio, comes to the screen with a cast headed by George Brent, Olivia de Ilavilland. John Payne and Frank McHugh. The Warner studio’s pre-eminence in the field of pictures dealing with life in tin various divisions of the armed forces of a nation was first established several years ago with . the production of “Here Conies the Navy. Since (hen suelt pictures as “Devil Dogs of the Air” and “Submarine D-l” have enabled this studio to continue its supremacy.

Mr Edward Frederic Benson, the well-known author, who died in February, left an estate* valued at £79,382.