GRAND THEATRE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 60, 2 November 1931, Page 4

GRAND THEATRE

TO-NIGHT As the first screen musical comedy to which Florenz Ziegfeld gave his own personal supervision and skill stagecraft, "Whoopee," which pays a return visit to Rotorua, according to the critics, does full justice to the reputation and talents o'f the famous impresario. "Whoopee," is very much a continuation of Eddie Cantor's stage success that ran for two years at the New Amsterdam Theatre, New York, transcribed bodily the films, with its huge spectacles magnified in size and beauty with the magic of technicolour to give it reality. Samuel Goldwyn, who produced the picture, claims that it is the first perfect all-colour cinema extravaganza. Yet despite its mammoth size, "Whoopee" is still the same intimate comedy that as "The Nervous Wreck," was one of the most amusing plays ever written. Ziegfeld managed to retain the uproarious humour of the original story when he set it on the great stage of the New Amsterdam, with music and song and hundreds of beautiful girls. Eddie Cantor remains the protagonist of the comedy. "Whoopee" on the stage gave him a success that surpassed even the phenomenal record of his "Kid Boots" and the many Ziegfeld "Follies" that he headed. Its screen adaptation is Cantor's first talking picture, — also the occasion that inaugurates the partnership of producer Samuel Goldwyn and impresario Florenz Ziegfeld.