LYRIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 445, 29 August 1928, Page 14

LYRIC

NEW PROGRAMME TO-MORROW A human and absorbing drama of life behind the footlights, entitled “Good Time Charley,” will be shown at the Lyric Theatre to-morrow, with Helene Costello, Warner Oland and Clyde Cook in the leading roles. It is the story of a song-and-dance man, with a small town stock company. Happy-go-lucky, always able to get a laugh, triumph ends abruptly when word is brought that his wife has been killed. He is left with a small daughter and a pal, his partner in the turn he does in the show. Years pass and the daughter becomes a star. Good Time Charley’s star wanes as hers rises and a series of unexpected events carry him down a pathetic and often amusing slope until he lands in the Home for Old Actors. It is here that the great climax occurs.

By an unusual coincidence the second picture on the new programme has also a plot centering around the lives of actors, although developed in quite a different way. This is “The Opening Night,” starring Claire Windsor and John Bowers. The central characters are Mr. Robert Chandler, a noted New York theatrical producer, whom his wife believes to be dead. He was wrecked near a Newfoundland fiishing village, but manages to get back to New York on the opening night of a new play in which his beautiful young wife is to appear. “The Opening Night” is an intensely gripping story that provides first-class entertainment.

“The Last of Mrs. Cheyney,” Frederick Lonsdales well-known play, has been secured as a screen production, for Norma Shearer, who recently completed “The Actress,” based on Sir Edward Wing Pinero’s play, “Trelawney of the Weils.”