NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 748, 22 August 1929, Page 17

NEW REGENT

“THE BROADWAY MELODY” i Musical comedy and vaudeville dan- , cers, recruited from stage shows in New York and the Pacific Coast, have their innings in the - first all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing musical comedy of the screen, “The Broadway Melody.'* Metro - Goldwvn - Mayer’s attraction, J which is still being presented at the | New Regent Theatre. Ballets, song ensembles and other ■ brilliant acts figure in the theatre j scenes in this vivid drama of backstage life. Among the dancing stars are Alice Weaver, New York danseuse, Fletcher Norton known on the stage as the world’s greatest soft shoe dancer, and many others. The new picture is a vivid romance ? with Miss Page and Miss Love playing , a “sister act” of the stage. They bring J their act to Broadway and there it fails. One finds happiness and love, : winning the man of her heart. The , other, though she loses her fiance, • philosophically shrugs her shoulders and goes on with her act somewhere out in the “sticks.” The cast includes Jed Proutv. Kenneth Thomson. Edward Dillon, Mary Doran. Eddie Kane. J. Emmett Beck, Marshall Ruth. Drew Demarest and others of note. Harry Beaumont, director of “Our Dancing Daughters,” directed the production from an original storj- by Edmund Goulding. The dialogue is by Norman Houston and James Gleason, author of “Is Zat So” and “The Shannons of Broadway. Among the entertaining short talkie features are songs by William O Neill, of Broadway fame, songs by “The Revellers.” the well-known gramophone nuartet, items by George Lyons, a singing harpist, and humour by Sunshine Sammy.” Arthur G. Frost plays a number of selections on the V urlitzer organ. Will v Fritsch, the well-known U.F.A.' star of “The Spy” and "Hungarian Rhapsody” fame, who plays the male lead in “Melody of Rife,” is making use of his spare time at Budapest by serving in the Hungarian Army. His part in the new production is* that of a Hungarian soldier, and when the Hungarian authorities proposed to him that he should make his home in the barracks of a Budapest regiment, in order to gain practical knowledge of the life, the duty, and the bearing of a Hungarian soldier, Mr. Fritsch willingly accepted.