ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 254, 24 September 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE

“HIS GIRL FRIDAY.”

The year’s wildest, wittiest whirlwind of romance is now showing at the Meteor Theatre with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell co-starred. The film is Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday,” a Columbia romantic comedy with Ralph Bellamy featured. “His Girl Friday” is a sparklingly racy riot which brilliantly interweaves romance and laughter. Grant is seen as the maddest man who ever rail a newspaper Miss Russell is his capricious, • captivating star reporter, and Bellamy the fuming, fretting insurance agent to whom : she is engaged. Against a background of drama and tragedy, this splendid screen triumvirate move through excitingly hilarious events which top and climax each other in breathless fashion. “His Girl Friday” is heralded as a thrilling modern romantic comedy set against the vibrant background of metropolitan life. Suspenseful situations, lating dialogue and sparkling comedy form an integral part of the picture. The unusually well-chosen cast of featured and supporting players includes Helen Mack, Ernest Truex, John Qualcn, Geno Lockhart, Roscoo Earns, Abner Bibcrman, Porter Hall, Clarence Kolb, Frank Orth, lisa-, bel Withers, Cliff Edwards, Frank Jenks, Harry Watson and Pat West. Howard Hawks, noted director of many screen successes, has brought his well-known flair for fast-moving drama to the direction of the new picture. “His Girl Friday” is based on an original play by Ben Hccht and Charles MacArthur.

STATE THEATRE

“PINOCCHIO.”

In bringing his version of the childhood classic “Pinocchio,” to tho screen as his second full-langth feature, Walt Disney has happily combined the most outstanding characteristics of tho original book with the unique appeal which the 'world audience has come to look for in every Disney character. Tho film shows at the Stato Theatre to-day. In the original story of Pinocchio, the marionette who came to life, the title character was a brutish little rascal who not only tormented the kind old wood-carver who created him, but killed a wise talking cricket that had lived in the house for over a hundred years, when the cricket tried to give him some good advice. He was selfish, and had practically no likeable qualities at all. He was_ bad for the sheer fun of being bad. Walt Disney’s little puppet character, as dramatised for R.K.O. Radio release, has been endowed with all the typical Disney appeal without losing any mischievous . qualities. Walt’s “Pinocchio” is bad more from an innocence of what is right and wrong than from anything else. _ In . appearance, too, the Disney Pinocchio is different from the puppet who generally appears in old book illustrations. The original was generally depicted as a long, lank marionette, very simple in construction, 'with a face’ almost totally devoid of charm. Tho Pinocchio of Walt Disney’s artists has a loveable little boyish quality not only in appearance, but in his voice and in . his sincere but blundering effort to learn right from wrong.