ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 258, 28 September 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

KOSY THEATRE. ■ “THE. PLAINSMAN.” Handsome Garv Cooper is cast as Cecil B. DeMille's “Wild Bill” Hickok in “The Plainsman,” and lovely Jean Arthur portrays “Calamity Jane,” famous frontierwoman who loveol the silent, hard-fight-ing peace officer, but could not have him. They are a far different pair in “The Plainsman” than they were in “Mr Deeds,”-and yet their assignment to the leading romantic roles is regarded as a. master stroke of casting. Cooper is widely known for his portrayals of the outdoor man-of-aetion, soldier-of-fortuno and seek-er-after-danger; “Wild Bill,” who was sent into the West by tho Government in the early seventies to find out who was responsible for selling guns to the Indians, was all of that. “Calamity Jane,” on the other hand, was a hard-boiled beauty, equally familiar with shooting irons and .the bullwhacker’s whip. There was something of the tomboy about “Calamity Jane” which is particularly adaptable to the hoydenish Aliss Arthur. The second big feature on the same programme is “Doctor Rhythm,” starring. Bing Crosby, a fashionable physician posing as an officer of tho law to save his best friend’s job. He finds a policeman’s lot is not a happy one when his first assignment is to serve as tho personal -bodyguard of Beatrice Lillie in Paramount’s

"Doctor Rhythm.” Duty blends pleasantly with love when Bea orders him to guard her pretty niece, Mary Carlisle, who wants to run away with a gangster. But music has charms, even for a spoiled girl, and after a few inoculations of Dr. Bing’s crooning, Alary decides to engage her bodyguard on a life-time contract.

STATE THEATRE

“THE GRAPES OF WRATH.”

A deep, stirring human appeal draws audiences to the very heights of film entertainment in Darryl F. Zanuck’s production of “Tho Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck’s fearless novel. The 20th Cen-tury-Fox film, which at its world premiere achieved the biggest opliing attendance in the entire history of New York’s 22-year-old RiYoli Theatre, shows at the State Theatre to-night. Under John Ford’s honest direction the Joads come to life with all the warmth, vitality and rugged humour that characterised Steinbeck’s widely acclaimed novel. Both the spirit and the letter of the book have been followed with extraordinary exactness by Associate Producer Nunnally Johnson who wrote the screen play. . The many thousands who eagerly awaited this picture will find every iota of drive and power of the original story has been retained in the screen version. Tom Joad, who is played by Henry Fonda, remains the courageous figure Steinbeck created. To follow his adventures on the screen is an experience no movie-goer can afford to miss. Jane Darwcll’s performance, as Air Joad, makes it impossible to believe that Steinbeck did not have her in mind when he created this indomitable Oklahoma mother. Jane carries her audience in the palm of her hand while she laughs • and cries, scolds her brood and defies the forces which would tear her family aj/.rt. What is by all odds one of the most difficult roles in tho picture, that of Casy, the garrulous, crusading preacher, is carried off with great distinction by John Uarrudine.