SPRING CLEANING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 530, 13 May 1933, Page 2

SPRING CLEANING

picturisation of sparkling comedy with daring plot. majestic on saturday. a sparkling comedy of modern manners, with a daring and original plot, is "Spring Cleaning," a British production which will be seen at the Majestic Theatre on Thursday next. It is a screen version of Frederick Lonsdale's hrilliant stage sueeess, "Spring Cleaning," and Lonsdale's scintillating wit has been preserved intact in the dialogue. a Lonsdale comedy is always a splendid vehicle for polished acting, and "Spring Cleaning" has one of the most imposing casts ever .assembled for a British picture. Mary Newcomb, Benita Hume, George Barraud, Joan Barry and Barry Jones are seen in featured roles. Edmund Breon, Gerald Lyley, Sylvia Leslie, Peter Evan Thomas, Mary Hamilton and Frank Lacy are other mfembers of the fine east. The story deals with the desperate means taken hy Richard Sones (Geo.

Barraud), a successful novelist, to ;ave his wife, Margaret (Benita Hume) from a set of worthless triflers, who pose as her friends, and who, he fears, will inevitably drag her down to their level. Among these people with too much money and too little to do, are Ernest Steele (Barry Jones), an attractive philanderer, who starts a flirtation with Margaret and then iinds that he has fallen in love with her; Fay (Joan Barry), a disilasioned "bright young thing" who still retains some decent feelings; Archie Wells (Edmund Breon), a rake who, while conducting an affair with his friend's wife, carries on with the chorus girls whose shows he finances, ' and Bobby (Gerald Cyley), an effe- j minate youth who goes into raptures , over the colours of lampshades. ; After a vain appeal to Margaret to give iip associating with these decadents, Richard persuades Mona (Mary Newcomb), an actress whose work he

admires, to pose as a woman of the streets, and then introduces her as a guest at his wife's dinner party. This daring ruse suceeds in its object, hut there are some hitter quar- ! rels, and hard lessons to he learned on both sides before the final happy reconciliation of husband and wife.