AMUSEMENTS

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 130, 6 January 1939, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

“IN OLD CHICAGO'* “in Old ‘Chicago” is vital, spectacular film document. Superb screen spectacle, with all the elements that go into the making of great entertainment, will be seen Saturday at. the De, Luxe Theatre, Darryl E. Zanuck’s awesome “In Old Chicago.”. Up to now, Hollywood seemed to have made the most of all of the classic struggles between man and the elements, but not since the “Birth of a. Nation” has such completely overwhelming grandeur graced a motion picture screen. That the grandeur in this 20th. Century-Fox production is derived from the relentless fury of an unrestrained holocaust which wiped out a middle-Western metropolis of a rougher and tougher c-ra in our his- ' tory, is only part of the film. The true beauty lies in the carefully manipulated' love story, capably written, directed and acted in the ' foreground of what, for want pi:

words, this reviewer will have to call sheer stupendousness. Dramatic laurels most certainly are due Alice Faye, Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, Alice Brady, Brian Donlevy and Andy Devine. Miss Faye, is revealed in “In Old Chicago” as a surprisingly talented actress., Her role as the soubretto in a gaudy, glittery, saloon of 1871, is its tempestuous sweetheart of the saloon’s owner.

Tyrone Power, that comet amcng the Hollywood stars, literally takes the role of Dion O’Leary in Jiis teeth and runs away with it. Don Ameche, as Jack O’Leary, the direct antithesis of Dion, gives a sincere performance as the reformer and envisioner of a clean, orderly, civ-ic-minded Chicago. Alice Brady is magnificent, giving the finest performance of her brilliant dramatic career as the hardworking, outspoken Molly O’Leary.

Credits for excellent performances could go on through the entire, cast even down to the extras who rush madly through fire-ravaged streets.

“CASSIDY OF EAR 20” Cattle-rustling in the days of the frontier West and the efforts of ranchers to put an end to it form tin; plot of Paramount’s new Hopalong Cassidy drama, “Cassidy of Bar 20", which will be seen at the De Luxe Theatre Saturday. William Boyd, as Clarence E. Mulford’s popular:, character, accompanied by his saddlematcs. Russell Hayden and Frank Darien, defeat the worst rustler of vhov. all, Robert Fiske, right in his own stronghold, and bring law and order at last to the cattle country.