AMUSEMENTS

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 100, 21 October 1938, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

“ALI BABA GOES TO TOWN” I' lin-making UAdie (Jantor and hitn^akiitg,. Twentietii CJentury-J? ex Have ton it tinod their talents ior t-lie 'mst time and really go to town as tne comedy king oi screen and radio stnis in the most lii-de-liilarious, extravaglorlous entertainment either have ever made, “Ali Baba. Goes to Town”, featuring Tony JM'artin, iloland Young., June Lang, Louise Jtioviek and a tremendous cast, which screens bat-, urdiay atVtfie l)e Luxe Theatre. ‘‘Ali Biiiba Goes to Town” is the most magnificent, combination of colourful - extravaganza, side - splitting comedy, song hits, beautiful girls, exotic dances, brilliant dialogue and lavish sets in the history of fun. The new, surpriseful Cantornado el’ laughter becomes a grab-Bagdad of fun as Ekklie turns Bagdad into Gagdad when he snaps it up to date with a head-tax on harems, a tail-tax • on camelus, a harem-reduction programme, slips cai’pet tacks under the sit-down strikers, and' snaps the Sultan into step with the march of time. Among the hi-de-highliglits in the spectacular mirth-musical are Eddie aboard the Magic Carpet dispersing the enemy’s army; the sumptuous, •colourful Bagdad banquet with Eddie as master of ceremonies; the Magic Carpet campaign and election returns in Bagdad; the Queen of the Harem,

Louise Hoviekl, making love to ban-jo-eyecl Eddie; a thousand and one other sights and hit tunes by Mack Gordon and Harry Bevel, “I’ve Got My Heart Set, On (You” with Tony Martin singing and June Lang dancing, ‘‘Laugh Your Way Through Life,” a happy hit led by Cantor, and ‘‘Swing Is Here to Sway”, to which Eddie, the Peters Sisters', Jeni Le Gon and the swinging, swaying chorus perform a riotous, rhythmic routine. Raymond Scott leads his famous Quintet playing liis own modernistic composition, ‘‘Twilight in Turkey” at, a Har<em dance. , A tremendous cast of entertainers, including John Garradine, Virginia Field, Alan Binchart and Douglas Dumbrille in addition to hundreds of lush harem beauties, about a million wild-riding Arab horsemen and hundreds of dancing Oriental darlings, 'is featured.

LOUIS v. SCHMFLING OFFICIAL FIGHT FILM A full and complete film record l of this sensational light, which ended in such a spectacular manner. A ringside view of the fight is shown from beginning to end, ~ and then the fistic fiattle is shown in slow motion, the whole occupying 17 minutes of screening time.

“VARSITY SHOW” ' • / , “Varsity Show',”- a musical comedy along altogether nc>v lines, and possessed of a sparkling cast, will be screened at the De Luxe .Theatre on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. A star individual —Dick Powell- —and; a star organisation—Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians—are the top-lin-ers in'this melodious, laughable, fastpaced tale of college life as the moviemakers see it—and as, doubtless, all college boys and girls wish it were. It is the tale of how tliq undergraduates of a little fresh-water educational institution try to put mi a show under ..the Supervision of a dignified and glooiny professor, only to realise that lie’s ruining it with his highbrow notions. Then they go to the city and dig up Dick Powell, a graduate, who by now is a successful Broadway producer, and induce him to come back to school and supervise, a real show. Dick and his partner—none other than the goofy Ted Healy—-take, over the job. And after many a battle between the modern and old-fogey elements in the school, a show is put on—and what a show! Maybe you can imagine Fred Waring himself and all his-bandsmen, some 50 odd, as college students and t-lio negro pair Buck and Bubbles as singing and dancing janitors of the school. “Varsity Snow” is a refreshing relief, in its story, from tlic well-worn ‘•back-stage”, routine into which many musical comedies have been kept. There is am air of briskness and youth

and gaiety to it rai’ely found in moviemusicals. • > - Rosemary Lane, lovely to look at, is *Diek Powell’s romantic feminine interest, while her sister Priscilla is one of the most original and adept dancers to he seen upon the screen in recent years. ; There are, of course, plenty of clances, both solo and chorus. The smashing finale of the show —rdevised and directed by Busby Berkeley—shows no less than 200 girls and 200 boys in a picturesque and stage-filling routine, dancing up and down a high and wide flight of steps at the college. Fred Waring and liis Pennsylvanians, impersonating the college band, have plenty to do in the musical way, and there are half a dozen hit songs by Dick Whiting and Johnny Mercer, who wrote the great “Night Over Shanghai” number for Dick Powell in “The Singing Marine.”