AMUSEMENTS

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 87, 21 September 1938, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

“STAGE DOOR” As the title implies,“Stage Door’’, which- screens at tne jJe Luxe Theatre to-night, Thursday and Friday ana star's,“mger Rogers, Adolphe 3renjou and: muliimiii FLepburn, has a, theatrical atmosphere. it blends m its vivid dramatic fabric the hopes and dreams or a score of stage-struck girls, eager, ambitious, cpimdent that

they wih succeed, in opening the portals to lame and fortune. Until that ■day arrives, they live at a theatrical boarding house, whose landlady is herself a former actress, and in this setting much of the film s action takes place. ■■ ■ : - ' -.

3Jiss Hepburn is one of these girls, a society debutante determined on a stage career, "despite the opposition of her wealthy family. Her roommate is Ginger Rogers, a carefree niglit-cluh entertainer who yearns to go into musical comedy. With them are dozens of others, would-be actresses, hopeful dancers, aspiring pianists,, models, an oddly-asserted group from every station in life, but all fired with the one desire of winning footlight fame.

Pulsing with the colourful lives of its various characters and offering a “behind-the-scenes” story that has never been told before, “Stage Door” weaves a kaleidoscopic pattern of heartburn and triumph through its drama. Success for one means disappointment for another, and this leans to tragedy" in the case of Andrea Leeds from a diverted role on which she haa her heart set.

. . The film becomes a play within a play when the opening night or a big stage production brings its own coinplications and upsets the “Club” in unexpected fashion. 31iss Hepburn’s conflict with Adolphe Menjou, a leading Broadway producer; 3liss Roger’s romance with William Corson, Menj oil’s press agent, and vivid cross-sec-tions of the careers of the other girls, all offer a wealth,of incident and picturesque drama to the story.

Gail Patrick, as the gold-digging . chorus girl, Constance Collier as the world-wise old character actress, Lucille Ball, Franklin Pangborn, Pierre' _Watliins Samuel S- Hinds, Ann 31il- , Jer, Frances Gifford, Ralph Forbes, and many others have important roles in the cast. The picture also introduces a number of “new laces” among the score of" boarders at die “Club.”

“PLUTO' S QUINTUPLETS’ ’

“Pluto’s Quintuplets,” Walt Disney’s latest Technicolour cartoon ior RKO Radio release, will be shown as an added attraction at tiro De Luxe Theatre to-niglft. The trials and tribulations of 3lr and Mrs Dionne with their five famous baby daughters are completely overshadowed by the troubles which beset Pluto when the pups are left in his care. His paternal patience is tested to the full in a series of canine escapades, the outcome of which only brings upon him the derision of Fiji, his wife.