ST. JAMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 959, 30 April 1930, Page 14

ST. JAMES

“ON WITH THE SHOW” COMING Many songs are foredoomed to failure. but two of the new harvest are destined to become internationally popular. for they were written for Warners* epic production. ‘'Noah's Ark,” in which Dolores Costello enacts the starring role and George O'Brien portrays the leading masculine characterisation. This production is now in its last days at the St. James Theatre. Louis Silvers, musical director for Warner Bros., and well-known Broadway composer, wrote both words and music of “Heart o’ Mine” and “Old Timer” as theme songs of this pretentious production. Mammoth scenes—the building of the huge tower of Babel—the great deluge that flooded and cleansed the world, the sacrificing of Miriam, handmaiden of Noah, to the imaginary god Jaghut—these and many others are depicted in this great film. Next Saturday is announced as the opening date for “On With the ShowV’ Warner Bros.’ 100 per cent, natural colour, talking,, singing, dancing Vitaphone picture. “On With the Show,” besides the glamour of back-stage life —it is a play within a play—combines a tender heart story, with the fantasy that is in the extravaganza which the stranded company of players are determined to put on. despite the fact that the “ghost” refuses to walk. Gorgeous costumes and settings are seen in their own brilliant colouring, and the tintings make the players all but living. Besides the great cast, “On With the Show” has a chorus of dazzling beauties, numbering over one hundred. One of the interesting things about this story is the fact that it is the first play of Humphrey Pearson, who went to Hollywood for his health, casually flung his brain-child into the Warner Bros.’ lot —to find himself a fortnight later with a job as a special writer for them, and with “On With the Sho-w” in production. The cast includes Betty Compson, Arthur Lake, Sally O’Neil, Joe E. Brown, Louise Fazenda, Ethel Waters, William Bake well, Fairbanks Twins, Sam Hardy, Wheeler Oakman, Lee Moran, Otto I-loffman, Harry Gribbon, Purnell B. Pratt, Josephine Houston. Henry Fink, Thomas Jefferson and Tom O’Brien. Alan Crosland directed.