AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 312, 18 December 1936, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

Plaza Theatre. Realistic power is the keynote of “The Prisoner of Shark Island," showing at the Plaza finally to-night after a three da|y’s season. Telling the true story' ‘of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the man who was unjustly imprisoned as one of the Lincoln conspirators, the new picture is an amaizing document of man’s inhumanity to man. Warner Baxter, the star, plays the title role of .the gentle backwoods physician who was sacrificed to a nation’s frenzy* in the furore ti-hat, followed the asssassination. Many of the actual conspirators are executed, but Baxter is saved for a more terrible fate- —-life imprisonment on the hellish Shark Island! Degraded, tortured, frantic with worry over his wife, Gloria Stualrt, and their child, he attempts an escape through the shark-filled prison moat. He wins his freedom in on© of the most harrowing scenes of ■the picture, only to be recaptured. For the next three nights, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, Arthur Tracey and Anna Neagle will appear in “The Street Singer’s’ Serenade,” while on Monday and Tuesday, “The Waiata Four” will make a stage appearance in several song numbers.

King’s Theatre. Scotland Yard, famed criminal investigating headquarters of London, for the first time in its long history, Jias revealed the workings of its inner mechanism. For three months prior to the beginning of production on the motion picture, “Mystery of Mr X,” communications flew between Scotland yard and the Metro-Goldwyn-Ma.yer studios. Photographs, secret records and histories were being forwarded, furnishing authentic data for the new film. Now completed and released, it 'will show at the King’s Theatre finally to-night at. 8 p.m. Robert Montgomery is starred and Elizabeth Allan, beautiful English actress, play’s the feminine lead. Saturday and Monday’s programme is a double-feature one with “The Final Hour” supported by “Public Nuisance No. 1.”

THE WAIATA FOUR. A musical combination well known in South Taranaki and shortly to be known throughout New Zealand is a Hawera quartet known as “The Waiata Four.” Messrs C. O. Pratt and B. Malone are the tenors, and Messrs R. S. Allwright and C. J. Roberts the basses. Shortly this group will commence a Dominion tour under the auspices of New Zealand Theatres, Ltd., and will make a stage appearance at the Plaza Theatre, Strtford, next Monday and Tuesday. The Waiata Four is undoubtedly a versatile combination. In a recent concert at Hawera their items varied from plantation songs to musical novelties, from Maori folk-songs to traditional ballads. A picture of melody and rhythm is how one critic described this concert .here being balance and blend in all types of items rendered, and a rare expressiveness and beauty of harmony.