NEW YORK NIGHTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 861, 3 January 1930, Page 15

NEW YORK NIGHTS

THEATRELAND COMES TO MAJESTIC “BROADWAY BABIES” About the back-stage of any theatre there is to the majority of people in the audience a peculiar fascination. Many of those who have tried to satisfy their curiosity have found the stage door an impassable barrier, but in “Broadway Babies,” which opened at the Majestic Theatre last evening, the curtain is drawn aside. Broadway’s night-life is faithfully dealt with from intimate glimpses of behind the scenes, to gambling dens where guns are but lightly hidden and the pulse of life beats fast The story follows the fortunes of three ballet girls of the New York stage, and there is pathos, humour and sentiment closely interwoven with the gripping action of the film. The glare of Broadway and the whirl of theatre life is followed by visits to the shadowy ways, where the city’s gangsters flit on business of a rather dubious nature. The plot deals with a lovers’ misunderstanding, which drives the chief of the three chorus girls to the arms of a pseudo-millionaire, much to the delight of her friends. The girl listlessly consents to a marriage, but, on the way to the ceremony, a vengeful gunman shoots down the millionaire. The dying man brings the lovers together again and leaves his money to enable Delight Foster, the chorus girl, to run her own show and splash her name in electrics on “The Great White Way." As well as being a good actress, Alice White, who fakes the principal role, is an accomplished singer and dancer. “Broadway Baby Dolls,” “Jig, Jig, Jigaloo,” and “Wishing and Waiting for Love" are three numbers that Miss White puts across in style. Sally Eilers and Marion Byron complete the dancing trio and Charles Delaney plays opposite Miss White. Mervyn Leßoy directed the film, which is a First National Vitaphone talking picture. It has long been realised that audiences find the most amusing situations those in which somebody suffers some ludicrous mishap. That is why one of the best scenarios for a rollicking comedy is a dentist’s surgery. The chief supporting picture at the Majestic last evening was “Acci-Dental Treatment,” a picture that reduced the audience to healthy tears of laughter in a moment. Fox Movietone News was as comprehensive as usual, and news from centres as far apart as Berlin and New Y'ork was "brought to vour eyes and ears, ’ as the announcer has it. A feature film, “Songs of the British Isles,” completed an excellent programme. Mr. Whiteford Waugh’s orchestra was responsible for pleasant incidental music, and deserves special mention for its good work in playing the music on which depended the success of “The Songs of the British Isles.”