Entertainments

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 3, 4 January 1940, Page 9

Entertainments

REGENT THEATRE TO-DAY “Goodbye, Mr. Chips" will screen finally to-day and to-morrow. REGENT THEATRE—SATURDAY “TARZAN FINDS A SON!" “Tarzan Finds a Son!" fourth of the famous Tarzan jungle adventures, reuniting Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen I O’Sullivan, brings a new character, Tarzan I Junior, and introducing in the role liveI year-old Johnny Sheffield. America’s most •amazing child athlete. The boy plays the I foster son of the jungle couple, swings ! through the air on vines with Weissmuller, engages with him in thrills of underwater swimming, is rescued from a rhinoceros, and figures in other thrills. "Tarzan Finds a Son!" deals with the finding of a baby in a plane wrecked in the jungle. Tarzan and Jane adopt and rear it. A safari penetrates the jungle in search of traces of the plane to clear up a legacy and the child becomes the object of a plot | by heirs who do not wish the youngster's existence known. Tarzan refuses to give up the boy, but Jane believes he should be returned for his birthright and tricks her mate. Wlien the party Is captured by savages and brought to a torture chamber Jane helps the boy to escape to summon Tarzan who arrives with Ills chimpanzee and elephant cavalry. Thrills include the routing of the native torture orgy and amazing rescues from wild animals. When Weissmuller rides his elephant Qiteenie, Johnny rides Baby Bee, smallest baby elephant in captivity. Players include lan Hunter, Henry Stephenson, Frieda Inescort, Henry Wilcoxon, Larane Day and Morton Lowry. METEOR THEATRE—TO-DAY “ZAZA" “Zaza," the play that scandalised Paris, London and Broadway at the turn of the century, has been made into a motion picture by Paramount with Claudette Colbert in (he title role, is now showing at the Meteor Theatre. The story of a music hall charmer whose romance with a man of the upper classes proves the tragedy of her life, “Zaza" stars Miss Colbert in one of the most unusual parts of her brilliant career She now heads an all-star cast, including suave Herbert Marshall, who plays her lover; Helen Westley, who is cast as her eccentric foster-mother; Bert Lahr, Constance Collier. Genevieve Tobin and Walter Catlett. The picture was directed for Paramount by George Cukor, who enjoys the unique distinction of having directed sue hepoch-making productions as “Little Women," “David •"opperfield," “Camille" and, most recently, “Holiday." MAYFAIR THEATRE—TO-MORROW “CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPT" This is the much-awaited film which has been a subject of wide interest ever since Warner Bros, started the production of it, the first really important motion picture document of Nazi espionage activities in America. Anatole Litvak directed the film, which stars Edward G. Robinson and a brilliant supporting cast, including Paul Lukas, Francis Lederer, Lya Lys—famous European film beauty, making her American debut—and many others. Although the particular characters and events are fictional, the espionage methods revealed in the film are based on the facts brought out in the recent trials in America. Leon G. Turrou, former G-Man, who acted as technical adviser on the Warner Bros, photoplay, smashed one of the Nazi spy rings, and his intimate knowledge of the manner in which the spies operate has given reality and authenticity to the production. “ConI fessions of a Nazi Spy" is a sensational picture in the true sense of the word, because it is a vivid depiction of the menacing under-cover activities fostered in a friendly country by the Nazi regime in Germany. In making the picture, Warner Bros, have used all the facilities at their command to bring the danger of these activities out into the open, and although the story of the film is fictional, there can be no doubt that the dangers are very real. Edward G. Robinson portray >the G-Man who breaks the spy ring and bripgs four of the members to trial and conviction. Paul Lukas plays*the doctor who heads the spy ring, and Lederer portrays a bungling Nazi informer. (Lya Lys, whose exquisite blonde beauty and dramatic ability make her one of the top European stars, makes her American film debut in “Confessions of a Nazi Spy.’*

STATE THEATRE—TO-MORROW DRAMATIC LOVE STORY Ingrid Bergman, the beautiful young continental actress, is introduced to audiences for the first time in the new David O. Selznick production, “Intermezzo, a Love Story,’’ in which she is co-starred with Leslie Howard and Edna Best. This new picture, a dramatic love story set in modern-day Europe, opens to-morrow at the State Theatre. Miss Bergman plays the role of the other woman in “Intermezzo, a Love Story." The story, briefly told, concerns a world-famous violinist who returns home to Stockholm to rejoin his wife and two children after a two years’ absence during which he became the sensation of continental Europe. Hoping to settle down to a quiet existence u-nd to renew acquaintance with his family, he finds himself restless and anxious ! for a life of youth and gaiety. Ho urges • his wife to accompany him on a second 1 honeymoon to the romantic places which he visited on tour, but she explains that her roots are in her home and that her children need her love and guidance. When lie meets the lovely young pianist who teaches his daughter, he is strangely attracted to her. He cannot resist her charms, and he goes off on another tour ' with her, leaving his family behind. How their affair finally winds up provides the film with an exciting and unexpected climax. Mr. Selznick assembled a cast of important names to surround the trio of i stars who play the leading roles in “Intermezzo, a Love Story.” Featured in the supporting roles are John Halliday, Cecil Kellaway, Enid Bennett and Eleanor Wesselhoeft. Also screening latest “March of Time” giving a cavalcade of the motion picture industry. Forty years of progress—yes terday, to-day and to-morrow. KOSY THEATRE—TO-DAY “THE BLACK LEGION" The first actual story of the Black Legion’s reign of terror, a picture that rips the black shirts from the backs of the hooded hoodlums, is “he Black Legion,” the attraction now at the Kosy Theatre. ;The story concerns a young automobile mechanic, played by Humphrey Bogart, who joins the Black Legion—purportedly 'a patriotic order—in a fit of bitterness lover losing the foremanship of his shop to a foreign-born fellow worker. The Legion, of course, is portrayed as a racket, enriching its promoters. The young ! mechanic takes part in house-burnings, Hoggings, tortures—all vividly shown and finally kills his best pal, Dick Foran. He loses his wife and child—Erin O’BrienMoore and Dickie Jones—and has to stand trial for murder. In a stirring courtroom scene, the deluded youth makes what reparation he can, and justice closes in upon the leaders of the fanatical Legion, who have been stirring up racial and religious hatred. Bogart, well remembered as the bandit in “Petrified Forest," excels in “Black Legion" even that remarkable performance. This is the best thing he has done on stage or screen. Incidentally, the same man who directed him before directed him in this—Archie Mayo. “Down the Stretch." “Down the Stretch," First National’s thrilling romance of the race tracks, has been booked as the second attraction, with Mickey Rooney, Patricia Ellis and Dennis Moore in the leading roles. Miss | Ellis, as owner of famous Kentucky stables, visits night court with her husband (Dennis Moore) when Snapper Sinclair, a boy she recognises as having been a jockey for her father, is about to be sent up for vagrancy. She has Snapper paroled to her and sencis him to her stables. Snapper Sinclair is played by Mickey Rooney. The manager of the stables objects to taking Snapper in because of his father’s bad reputation—but when ho rides an unmanagable horse to I victory he accepts him. He wins race !after race afterwards, until he is framed and suspended. Snapper is broken-hearted, but gets a chance to go to England where he is finally chosen to ride the Maharajah’s nag for the gold cup at Ascot. He discovers that his boss has lost all her horses but one, Faithful, which she has entered for the gold cup. Snapper lias the race cinched with Faithful rulining third when he fouls the second horse to Jet Faithful go under the wire first. For this he is debarred from the English tracks, I but is. happy when Miss Ellis visits him at. the hospital where he is recuperating. She tens him she is taking him back to the U.S.A. Others in the cast are Virginia Brissac, Gordan Hart, Gordon Elliott, Josepr Crehen, Mary Treen.