NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 520, 24 November 1928, Page 15

NEW REGENT

PICTURES, DANCING AND MUSIC “Four generations of Hicks have lived in this house and we ain’t leavin’ now.” With those words Old Man Hicks breathes defiance to Old Man Beagle and a bloody feud in the Kentucky mountains is on in “The Big Killin,” the Paramount Wallace Beery-Ray-mond Hatton team comedy now playing at the New Regent Theatre. The Hicks and the Beagles had quit “feuding” for the more profitable pastime of making corn “licker,” but, when one of the Beagle boys finds his sister in the arms of young Jim Hicks, the stills get a rest and the rifles come into use again. Beery and Hatton are, as usual, tlie round pegs in the square holes. They stumble into the thick of the feud when they think they are landing a soft job. Then they find themselves busier than they have ever been before, dodging bullets. They tumble through a trap door in the woods and land in the Beagle’s cellar still.' Then they have to try their skill as foot racers again when the Beagles discover their hiding place. Mary Brian takes the role of the Beagle girl, who starts the mountains ringing with gunshot reports fi r hen she lets Jim Hicks kiss her. Gardner James is the fortunate Jim Hicks, and Lane Chandler is the other Hicks boy. Among others in the cast are Anders Randolph and Paul McAllister. A picture that strips the glitter and tinsel from circus life is “The Sawdust Paradise,” in which Esther Ralston is the star. “The Sawdust Paradise” is a penetrating drama of love between an itinerant evangelist whose gospel meetings run in competition with the circus, and the laughing, dancing girl who struts outside the circus tent. Hobart Bosworth appears as the evangelist. Gaiety and harmony are blended in the dancing and music which is offered at the Regent this week. Maurice Diamond’s clever dancing girls present new ballet and individual dances, but popular applause goes to two concerted items and the appearance of Stella Lamonde, a dainty young soubrette, who only recently arrived from Sydney. The first of the concerted items is a musical satire based on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that is thoroughly laughable. The second is a fine dancing exhibition showing the evolution of jazz from the stately waltz to the black bottom. Mr. Maurice Guttridge’s Orchestra provides a new selection of snappy musical numbers.