NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 283, 20 February 1928, Page 13

NEW REGENT

VAUDEVILLE AND PICTURES The chief pictorial attraction at the New,. Regent Theatre this week is “Figures Don’t Lie,” a Paramount film featuring Esther Ralston. Esther Ralston, as a private secretary, is altogether lovely, and it isn’t at all hard to see why Richard Arlen, who works in the same office, falls in love with her. Miss Ralston wears beautiful but simple costumes that are apt to set new styles for business girls. She is strikingly beautiful in her bathing costume in the beach scene. Richard Arlen portrays a lovable type of irrepressible youth who won’t take “no” for an answer.

Ford Sterling never had a better laugh-provoking role than that of “Howdy” Jones, absent-minded business man, and he realises its full possibilities. Blanche Payson is a scream as the jealous wife. Doris Hill, whose ability in leading roles has often been demonstrated, is charming and convincing as Mamie, the girl friend of Miss Ralston.

An item of outstanding merit is the appearance, afternoons and evenings, for one week only, of Owen MeGiveney, the distinguished English protean actor, in his original and unique Dickens sketch. In this sketch are introduced the characters of Fagin, Bill Sikes, Nancy, Walter Monk and The Artful Dodger, all played by Mr. McGiveney himself. Mr. McGiveney, in fact, makes 20 complete and different changes in the course of the 15-minute sketch.

The art of quick change has been mastered by Mr. McGiveney to such an extent that his appeaarnces in the different costumes of the respective characters in the sketch from the immortal “Oliver Twist” of Dickens were positively bewildering. It seemed indeed, incredible that one man could change with such rapidity. An exceptionally strong pictorial programme supports Neal Burns in a shrieking Parisian farce, “French Fried, and the first of a clever series of Inkwell Cartoons, “Inkwell Imps,” entitled “Koko the Knight,” provides the comedy side. An interesting budget of world news includes a most interesting film of “A Day on a Submarine,” motor-boating in Sydney Harbour, life-saving clubs on St. Kiida Beach. A beautiful scenic of Mount Gambier, in South Australia, introducing the home of Adam Lindsay Gordon, completes an exceptionally powerful programme.

Maurice Guttridge and the Regent Operatic Orchestra play their usual excellent musical programme, including Suppe’s “Morning, Noon and Night,” as the overture.

Leslie V. Harvey, who arrived last week from Sydney, delights the audiences with his masterly handling of the Wurlitzer organ.

“Sharpshooters,” featuring George O’Brien and Lois Moran, is now under way at the Fox Studios. Miss Moran has recently completed “Publicity Mad ness,” as her first featured film for Fox, with Edmund Lowe co-starred. Miss Moran plays the role of a French dancer in a Moroccan cafe in “Sharpshooters,” in which the athletic George is seen as a devil-may-care young “gob” from a war-ship in the harbour. He finds that the girl’s love is a very real thing to him, and is torn between the call of duty and the girl of his heart. Lois Moran is exceptionally charming as the dancer, and has the opportunity for displaying her terpsichorean art for the camera, appearing as the most fascinating little nautch girl imaginable. She w r as originally trained as a dancer from childhood, and has only danced for the camera on one previous occasion.