“HAPPY DAYS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 952, 21 April 1930, Page 12

“HAPPY DAYS”

CIVIC’S EASTER SHOW GLITTERING EXTRAVAGANZA Beautiful girls, spectacular drills, luxurious settings, gorgeous costumes, bewildering surprises, tuneful melodies, and sidesplitting jokes—all these and more are the ingredients of the big show ‘‘Happy Days,” which is the IdeAl Easter holiday attraction at the Civic Theatre. No mental picture can be drawn of “Happy Days,” the all-star, all-talking Fox Movietone song romance which began an engagement on Saturday. It is the most lavish revue to reach the screen, and the cast includes such well-known personages as Will Rogers, Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Walter Catlett, George Jessel, William Collier, Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Harold Murray, El Brendel, Warner Baxter, Ann Pennington, Marjorie White, Sharon Lynn, Dixie Lee and a host of other celebrities. The story concerns a minfetrel troupe that plays the local opera houses along the Mississippi River*, travelling by steamboat. Colonel Billy Batcher, a lovable old character, owns the show, and when it goes on the financial rocks, the colonel’s old friends, now stars on Broadway, come to his aid and put on a monster minstrel and vaudeville show that rehabilitates his fortune. The second part is devoted to some spectacular stage numbers, with the stage held by beautiful girls in bewilderingly beautiful costumes, backed up by the soloists. These include Sharon Lynn in a number entitled “Snake Hips,” Dixie Lee in “Crazy Feet,” and Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor in a delightful number specially written for them called “We’ll Build a Little World of Our Own.” An early sequence, a replica of a famous New York stage club, introduces in a noval way Will Rogers, George Jessell, Warner Baxter and two score other famous personalities of stage and screen. Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe stage a humorous interlude, a skit on their “Cock-Eyed YYorld” picture. “Happy Days” was directed by Benjamin Stoloff. It is the finest contribution to the sound screen yet heard in Auckland. It is a joy to the hearts of stage and screen patrons, especially those who have always had a yearning to see the stars. Here

they see 100 of them. And there are 20 musical numbers, and a feast of song, music and dancing. The first section of the Civic programme on Saturday was of the high standard one has learned to expect always from the Civic. Ted Henkel and his Civic Concert Orchestra are heard at their best in the gay music of “The Belle of New Y"ork.” Fred Scholl earned very warm applause for his playing of “The Holy City” and other selections. In addition to one or two short talkio items, there is a most interesting series of sound gazettes. The Fox Movietone News contains scenes of the arrivel at Sydney of Flying-Officers Piper and Kay after their adventurous flight from England. There are alio the first views, in sound, of the golf match in Sydney between Hagen and Kirkwood. The special introductory musical session from 7.30 p.m. was very well patronised, when a delightful programme of music was played by Ted Henkel’s orchestra and by Fred Scholl