ENTERTAINMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 259, 30 September 1940, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

METEOR THEATRE

“THE GREAT WALTZ.”

Alagic melodies of Vienna amid a dramatic, romantic story of the musician who was the voico of the gayest city in the world, brings Luise Rainer, Fernand Gruvet and Aliliza Korjus, Viennese opera star, to the screen in “The Great Waltz,” drama of the life of Johann Strauss, now playing at the Meteor Theatre. Not only the physical Vienna of the period hut ilo spirit are caught in the romantic story of the Waltz King’s life and loves. Straps®’ waltzes and operetta airs are presented in .spectacular sequences in the Imperial Opera, the Dormnayer Casino, grand ball sequences and the court of Emjreror Franz Josef. Thrills are provided by the Revolution in the days of Aletternich. Romance abounds. The story deals with the composor from the time ho lost his position as a bank clerk and turned to music to liis final honours in the Emperor’s court. His marriage to the sweetheart of his youth and his subsequent infatuation for a brilliant opera'star who sends him back to his faithful wife, form the plot against which dazzling spectacle, ballets and other glamorous incidents' bedeck the best-loved music in the world. Gravet, French star, plays Strauss, appearing throughout the story as a young man until the final scenes where he appears during old age, the Strauss best known to the world. Luise Rainer is appealing and powerfully dramatio as Poldi, the wife. Mnie. Korjus, credited with one of the greatest voices in the world, has a fine flair for comedy, is beautiful, and makes Carla Donner, the singer, a, glamorous figure.

KOSY THEATRE

“THE PLAINSMAN.”

Handsome Gary Cooper is cast as Cecil B. DeMille’s “Wild Bill” Hickok in “The Plainsman,” and lovely Jean Arthur portrays “Calamity Jane,” famous frontierwoman who loved 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-action, soldier-of-fortune and seek-er-after-danger. “Wild Bill,” who was sent into the AVest by the 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 bullwhaeker’s whip. There was something of the tomboy about “Calamity Jane” which is particularly adaptable to the lioydenish Alise Arthur. | The second big ieaturo on the same programme is “Doctor Rhythm,” starring Bing Crosby, a fashionable physician posing os an officer of the law to save liis best friend’s job. He finds a policeman's lot is not a happy one when his first assignI ment is to serve as the personal bodylgmard of Beatrice Lillie in Paramount’s “Doctor Rhythm.” Duty blends pleasantly with love when Boa orders him to guard her pretty niece, Alary Carlisle, who wants to run awny 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-lime contract.