AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 319, 29 December 1936, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

Plaza Theatre. True friendship that proves itself under a hail of fire and in the face of gay adventure is the theme of the dashing, colourful and exciting 20th Century picture, “Professional Soldier,” which shows at 'the Plaza tonight, to present Victor McLaglen and Freddie Bartholomew in their first co-starring role. It all starts out as a carousing adventure with the none too scrupulous McLagkn agreeing to kidnap the king of a little European state for.a price, lie is in the pay of revolutionaries. McLaglen and his assistant, played by Michael Whalen, carry out< their part of the bargain, even though they lose their taste for it when they discover that the monarch is a stripling. They also carry l away Gloria Stuart, who breaks in on them in the middle of the crime. In a mountain hideaway', the king and the soldier strike up a fast friendship. McLaglen trains the lad in games in which he soon becomes more proficient than his instructor, and toils him horrific, tales of bloodshed. Everything goes well, even the blossoming romance between Whalen and Miss Stuart, until a royalist plot .carries the king back to his palace and McLaglen to a cell to await death. But the royalists themselves plot to do away with the king. In the thrilling, nerve-scraping climax, McLaglen stages a jail break and a oneman war that outstrips even his colourful lies, bringing the story to its happy close.

King’s Theatre. An engrossing murder mystery which takes pace at fictitious Rudyard college, provides the theme for “Tue Clock Strikes 8,” which is to commence a season at King’s Theatre to-night. Kent Taylor, Arline Judge, Eddie Nugent, and Wendy Barrie, the new ingenue sensation from England, play the principal roles in the picture. Wendy Barrie acts the part of a French girl, the daughter of a new professor, and the new centre of attraction for the college sheiks. The man she really' likes,- however is Kent Taylor, a chemistry professor. When the editor of the college newspaper attempts to print a story linking up Miss Barrie and Taylor romantically, he is mysteriously killed. Not long after, his closest friend is strangled to death by a mysterious assailant. The college, gripped by terror, blames Wendy Barrie for the mysterious killings. When an unsuccessful attempt is made on Eddie Nugent, the police finally get on the trail of the actual killer. A thrilling chase and the arrest of the principals from a house in which a bomb has been set, serves to bring the criminals to justice anti the picture to a happy ending, Ralph Scott in Zane Grey's “Heritage of the Desert,” forms the first part of this thrilling programme.