ST. JAMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 15

ST. JAMES

“ON WITH THE SHOW” “On With the Show,” a 100 per cent, colour and talking film, is continuing its season at the St. James Theatre. Its music, dancing, singing, dialogue and colour mark it as a picture altogether out of the ordinary. It has been produced to give the effect of reality, it is built to make the audience believe it is sitting in a theatre witnessing a musical comedy, with the added privilege of going back-stage with the players where the real comedy and drama of their lives take place. The story shows the try-out performance of a musical comedy, ‘‘The Phantom Lover,” being got ready for its Broadway opening, with all the happenings out front, on the stage and backstage, which tend to make producers of musical comedy prematurely grey-headed. It is entirely filmed in the latest development in colour photography and is a gorgeous treat fox* the eye as well as for the ear. The all-star cast includes Betty Compson, Arthur Lake, Sally O’Neill, Louise Fazenda, Joe E. Brown, the Fairbanks twins, Sam Hardy, Lee Moran and others, and a singing and dancing chorus of one hundred. The remainder of the programme at the St. James includes a number of entertaining short talkie items. There are one or two good comedy sketches’, jazz items by Abe Lyman’s Band, songs by Frank Crumit, items by the Newsboys’ Harmonica Band, and songs by Chief Caupolian, a Bed Indian Avith a rich, full baritone voice.