“BIG TIME”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 14

“BIG TIME”

MAJESTIC’S NEXT CHANGE In “Big Time,” the Fox Movie-tone all-talking screen drama which unfolds the heartbreaks, triumphs and joys behind the scenes of a vaudeville theatre, Stepin Fetchit enacts his best and funniest role since his inimitable characterisation of “Gummy" in “Hearts in Dixie.” Stepin portrays the character of “Eli,” keeper of the seals which are trained by “Sybil,” a roke that gives Daphne Pollard, the well-known comedienne, an opportunity for creating laughs. , Lee Tracy and Mae Clarke, both recently prominent on Broadway, are entrusted with the leading roles in this backstage romance, which will open next week at the Majestic Theatre. Tracy appears as “Eddie Burns," a small time hoofer with an overdeveloped sense of his own importance, who is taught a lesson in humility of which he was so much in need. Miss Clarke enacts the role of the wife, who, though deserted, never ceases to love him, and who administers the punishing education that brings the egotistical song and dance man to a point where he sees himself in his own true light. EMPRESS AND CRYSTAL PALACE “Three Live Ghosts," now at both the Empress (Newton) and Crystal Palace (Mount Eden) Theatres, is not a mystery story, but a delightfully refreshing comedy-drama, based on the play by that name which scored so heavily oh the New York and London stage. The story revolves around three British soldiers who escape from a German prison camp and return to their former haunts in London only to discover that they are legally dead in the eyes of the Government and their friends. The “Three Live Ghosts" are Charles McNaughton, who gives a realistic characterisation of “Jimmie Gubbins," a Cockney; Robert Montgomery, as “William Foster," an American, wanted by the police, and Claude Allister, an English “gentleman" who is known as “Spoofy" because he has lost his mental faculties due to shell-shock. At the Empress Theatre the supporting programme is headed by Lon Chaney’s picture, “Where East is East."