NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 993, 9 June 1930, Page 15

NEW REGENT

“NOT SO DUMB” “Not So Dumb,” an all-talking adaptation of the successful stage comedy, “Dulcy,” directed by King Vidor, •with. Marion Davies as the star, and with a supporting cast which includes Elliott Nugent, Raymond Hackett, Julia Faye, Sally Starr and Donald Ogden Stewart, is now at the New Regent Theatre. “Not So Dumb” is a particularly happy choice as a vehicle for Miss Davies, who is known as one of the most humorous individuals of the Hollywood colony, both on and off the screen. The plot concerns a young woman, more beautiful than she is wise, whose every good intention results in a blunder. Those who have seen Miss Davies in her last two comedies, “The Patsy” and “Show People,” will understand her fitness for just such a characterisation. In an effort to assist her fiance, Gordon (Elliott Nugent), in a jewellery merger, the eager Dulcy invites the other member of the would-be partnership, C. Rogers Forbes (William Holden), together with his wife (.Julia Fay) and daughter, Angela (Sally Starr), to a week-end party at her home. Other guests at the party do their unknowing best to infuriate the important Forbes, and a climax ensues in which the jewellery magnate accuses one man of making love to his wife, and another of doing the same to his daughter. It looks like certain doom for the merger, to say nothing of Dulcv’s romance. However, all is ironed out in a surprising conclusion and the audience may leave the theatre with a laugh. One of the most hilarious scenes in the comedy is that in which the guests play bridge. In this episode. Miss Davies sounds a warning note to women bridge-partners who try to outbid, out-trump and out-talk everyone else. This scene, which Vidor filmed with intimate detail, attains a high mark in comedy, and will be particularly intriguing to those who enjoy burlesque of every-day happenings. The greatest actress and the most beautiful voice on the American stage come to the dialogue screen in the second attraction, amazing, dramatic, thrilling and appealing talker —a picture none will soon forget, entitled ‘ The Awful Truth,” and starring Ina Claire.