AMUSEMENTS

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 198, 23 June 1939, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND” living Berlin’s Smash Production; “Alexander’s Ragtime Jla net-” .which screens at the Regent Theatre en Saturday, Monday and Tuesday is full oi great melodies and moments, amt stars Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, and' Don, Aineche. ‘‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band” is greater than they say it is 1 Periodically Hollyw -a. d produces a picture that stands out as a beacon ai< ng the highroad of motion picture progress—and. such a picture is Darryl E. Zanuc.k’s production of Irving Berlin’s, great saga of three decaUe 3 in the march of America.

Add story to cast and direction and this 20th. C'entury-FOx film mounts to a pict lie that for years M come wil. be lemcjaberef as a turning pouit—a new trend,— the uti’u rfinou of memorable melodies in a draniutu - story, of the screen’s mightiest moment. The Irving Berlin score is ,ot course, without previous or subsequent parallel. It took the Shake- - speare of syncopation 27 years to write it, and every one- of tlie 28 songs, used wholly or partially in the pietore, topped the hit parade of its era. They are the inilesposts along rhythm’s conquest of . mankind from the Barbary Coast to Carnegie Hall.— The film makes them integral story material by easting the principal characters as members, of a fictitious Alexander’s Ragtime Band—and letting them do just about what- the members'" of a real band would have done. Brilliant Cast. In the bewildering brilliance of “Alexander” Tyrone Power starts with a small band in a honky-tonk. Don Aineche writes the tunes which Alice Faye sings. Love smolders, flares, cools, blows up and is rekindled over the jears lor Tyrone and Alice. History moves before the eyes with the reminiscent melodies of Irving Berlin as a gentle .guide through the plot. Such a story framework—the career of a young musician and. the girl who sang the nation’s love songs—two hotheads quarreling and parting, forgiving and finding love again through the music that was tlieir life—is novel m and scintillating.