AMUSEMENTS

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 186, 24 May 1939, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

“CHECKERS'- , . •NUii’k,PCliec'kers” Jane . ■ Uul girl whojius just, been votedyno of the six umst - popuijiiv'.stars.vqU. tgi-) day wears * the proudest racing : 'silks oh the track in ‘ ‘Checkers, ’’ Tier .latest. , Twentieth Century-Fox • pictuf ing Thursday at- the Regent Theatre/, Jane’s at her uproarious best, and 'what a thoroughbred she is, even when Lady Luck forgets to, act like a, lady. Stuart Erwin and Una Merkel aro featured in romantic roles in the film, and Marvin Stephens, the bad boy of “Borrowing Trouble,” plays Jane’s first screen “crush.” As the slickest horse-trader whoever got stung, Stuart has been courting Una. for seven years, but she disapproves of Stu’s motto: “Love me, love my horse,” for Una is a girl who refuses to fill her hope chest with horse blankets. The horse that stands in the way of Stu’s romance in the recent days of his sit-down courtship is “Blue Skies,” a racing filly whose flashing hoofs at the end of the film give the girl a new light on the Erwin motto.

“RIDING ON AIR” Packed with novelty and side-split-ting situations, Joe K. Brown’s latest picture, “Riding on Air”, which screens Thursday and Friday at the Regent Theatre presents the noted comic in the role of a small-town newspaperman who gets uproariously involved with airplanes and stock promoters. Based on the famous “Elmer Lane” stories that have appeared from time to time in the Saturday Evening Post, the new offering breaks sharply away from the type of vehicle in which Brown lias starred in the past. As the one-man staff of a weekly paper in a little Wisconsin town, Brown as Kilmer, also takes on the job of being correspondent for a big Chicago daily, and endeavours to help a fellow-towns-man promote the development of an airplane which he flies by radio-beam remote control. Along with these activities runs his romance with the belle of the town in the face of the opposition of a wealthy rival. And when he wins a five thousand dollar slogan contest and a. suave Chicago confidence man comes to town toi separate him from the money, and succeeds, things begin to b appen in the best Joe EL. Brown tradition, with hilarious situations piling on top of one another. Me gets “scooped co a murder story, the confidence man floats a company to capitalise on the airplane invention ; he plots to pursue some crooks who are smuggling perfume into the country by plane, and with these and other factors, the story-plot becomes a complicated riot of fun and entertainment, with Brown at his uproarious best in the middle of it all. Florence Rice makes a lovely heroine. and, Vinton Haworth lias the part of Brown's rival for her affections, with Anthony Nace as the young inventor. Harlan Briggs as Miss Rice’s father and Andrew T’ombes as the hard-boiled Chicago editor.