CIVIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 984, 29 May 1930, Page 16

CIVIC

“SPLINTERS” TONIGHT The film version of “Splinters” will be shown at the Civic Theatre tonight. The origin of “Splinters” is just as the title implies—bits from here and there—just the fragments from France —but the grandest, most unique entertainment the world has ever known. Imagine the consternation when a private in the front line is ordered to report to headquarters at once! Wha7 for? What’s up? He has done nothing serious. There was that mademoiselle at Doulens. There was that lark at Ypres. There was—but headquarters—Phew! This particular private, Hal Jones by name, did not lose his pay nor his leave by his visit to headquarters, however. On the contrary, he was ordered to organise a bright show for the boys! What of a theatre? A derelict hut undergoes transformation. A stage of packing cases. What of footlights? Candles in bottles! What of “props” and costumes? Hal begs, borrows commandeers, anything to produce a. show. Sacking becomes curtains, old forms for chairs, sugar boxes becom* ornamental pillars overnight, but the famine of famines—what of artists? Hal had to have artists and lie meant to find them if he had to stop the war itself. Jones found that Ills great singers, dancers and poets were mostly just bad. indifferent, or very bad indeed. When the company was finally gathered, the hutful of bawling khaki went ■wild. So intent were they on making a general row and yelling the popular tunes that nobody noticed the late rising of the “curtain.” Scenes and furniture, as well as history, gave way on - that first night, but the company progressed until the hut gave way to the “Bra Sat Theatre,” and the early entertainment crudities became “Splinters.” So the greatest of wartime revues was born, and “Splinters” became the joy of every lonely soldier in France. “Splinters” as a motion picture is every bit as great as “Splinters” as a war-time revue, and it is safe to say, the world and his wife will enjoy it just as our Empire soldiery did An excellent supporting programme will be presented this evening. In addition to a number of short talkie featurettes, there will be an organ novelty by Fred Scholl entitled “The Evolution of the Movies.” Ted Henkel’s Civic Concert Orchestra will play. In addition to the incidental music, the overture “The Gondoliers” (Sullivan). PLAZA TWO FINE COMEDIES Douglas Fairbanks is perhaps the only man in the world who could eat an apple at his own wedding ceremony and get away with it. But that is exactly what happens in “Taming of the Shrew” which has brought Fairbanks and Mary Bickford to the screen of the Plaza Theatre. How Miss Pickford, as the stormy Katherine, accepts this action is one of the highlights of the glorious Shakespearian comedj*. “Dames Ahoy,” sparkling Universal comedy with Glenn Tryon, Helen Wright, Otis Harlan, and Eddie Gribbon the second feature at the Plaza, is one continuous laugh from stem to stern.