PLAZA AND TIVOLI

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 564, 17 January 1929, Page 15

PLAZA AND TIVOLI

SHOW IiIKL “Show Girl” is the title of the big picture to be shown at the Plaza and Tivoli Theatres this evening. This is the screen version of the popular novel by J. P. McEvoy. J. P. McEvoy has a fund of breezy humour and a sense of satire which always remains good-natured. His characters smack of Broadway as a sailor smacks of the sea. They live v and breathe and have their being along the brilliant pathway of incandescents. They thrive in the heady atmosphere of night clubs and begin to live when the other half begins to sleep. As “Dixie Dugan,” Alice White brings to life on the screen the sophisticated little heroine who is a type distinctly Broadway. She wins by sheer pluck and a refusal to be downed. She is a Salaromping through the flames, yet never being singed. Her associates are a bright young reporter, a monotonous motto-card salesman, a Chilian dancing man, a “sugar daddy” and the people of the show world. To the four corners of the world she carries the message of Broadway. She has no great story to impart—she brings a revelation of sprightliness, of charm. She is redolent of the smart beauty parlours and her garb is of the least possible material. True —she begins humbly as a stenographer, but she reaches musical comedy heights, passing through the night clubs en route, and in the end wins the reporter and. we assume, future marital happiness. McEvoy plucked her from the melting pot and presented with trimmings and sauce piquant for screen fare. None could have filled the bill better than the flapper ingenue star, Alice White. Donald Reed, Charles Delaney, Lee Moran, Kate Price, Jimmie Finlay son, Richard Tucker, etc —all sterling actors —play the other roles admirably. In “How to Handle Women,” the second feature. Glenn Tryon plays the part of a smart young smalltown newspaper cartoonist w h o sets out to startle New York and to demonstrate his superiority and fatal charm over women, especially over Beatrice Fairbanks, the writer of a lovelorn column in a New York paper. How he “handles” her and how he poses as a visiting prince seeking to raise a national loan in Wall Street, makes hilarious fun and gives him ample opportunities for his particular brand of comedy. In the supporting cast are such players as Raymond Keane, who plays the prince, Robert T. Hains, Bull Montana, Cesare Graving, E. H. Herriman, Leo White, Mario Carillo and Violet La Plante.