AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 396, 1 April 1937, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

Plaza Theatre. “My American Wife.” Francis Lederer has never been given a better screen role than in the Paramount film romance, “My American Wife,” which showE at the Plaza Theatre tonight. Nor has the star of “One Rainy Afternoon” ever been provided with a better screen mate than his co-star in the present picture, Ann Sothern. “My American Wife” is light-footed romance, brought to the screen with a flair which only Lederer and a star of Miss Sothern’s type could provide. The story itself, from a Saturday Evening Post feature by Elmer Davis, is refreshingly unique, and the cast lined up behind the principals is unusually capable. Heading the list is Fred Stone, veteran player who appears as an old Arizona pioneer with a Western contempt for the spangles and airs of foreign nobility. Billie Burke, Ernest Cossart and Grant Mitchell are outstanding among those that follow.

In “My American Wife,” Lederer is a foreign Count who marries an American girl. Miss Sothern, purely for love. They return to Arizona, where the girl, prompted by her mother, begins to capitalise on the social prestige lent her by the Count’s title. Reversing the , familiar scheme of things, the Count himself rebels. He wants to be a real American, a cowboy and ranch operator. He takes Stone as his best friend, and starts learning to roll his own cigarettes and wear a ten-gallon hat. The conflict which follows heads the couple towards divorce, but they are reunited by a bit of deception staged by Stone. A cast of seasoned troupers, headed by the beloved Fred Stone, Billie Burke, that peer of all “gentlemen’s gentlemen,” Ernest Cossart, and Grant Mitchell, lend support to Francis Lederer, European star, and lovely Ann Sothern. King’s Theatre. “Girl ol the -Oaarks.” The charm of a section of America where life retains primitive simplicity and moves with the tempo of a placid mountain stream is translated to the screen in “Girl of the Ozarks,” Paramount film starring young Virginia Weidier, which shows at the King’s Theutre to-night. The eight-year-old girl star gives one of the most convincing child perpormances in many months as an underprivileged mountain girl whose spirited nature leads her from one difficulty to another. A real veteran of films, having

played in her first picture at the age of three, Virginia "sells herself” not so much through beauty or cuteness as through fine acting ability. She proved her capability in “Peter Ibbetson,” and her characterisation in the present film illustrates the wisdom of executives in rewarding her with stardom. “Girl of the Ozarks” is a simple story, simply told in the language and customs of the section it depicts. Characters of the films are finely drawn: Henrietta Grosman succeeds in catching the feeling of the gnarled, pipe-smoking and gun-toting hill woman who is Virginia’s grandmother, and Leif Erikson and Elizabeth Russell make real mountain sweethearts who give the picture its romantic background. Classroom difficulties, and the trouble arising when the grandmother “arranges” to get a dress for the girl’s class day exercises send Virginia to the county home and Granny to gaol. Their release and return to the simple hill life is bound up with the happy ending of the Erikson-Russell romance.- ■ • The picture provides fine entertainment for every member of the family. “Three Cheers For Love.” A gay, romantic musical, as faststepping as the “swing tunes” it features, is presented in “Three Cheers for Love," Paramount show with Eleanore Whitney and Robert Cummings in leading roles, which shows at the King’s to-nighi. Miss Whitney and Robert Cummings are aided by a cast of talented performers, Including Louis DaPron and Olympe Bradna, ace dancers; William Frawley and Roscos Karns, in comedy roles;, Veda Ann Borg, John Halliday, Elizabeth Patterson, Grace Bradley and Billy Lee. Eleanore is the pep-filled, tap-danc-ing daughter of Halliday, a Hollywood movie producer. Miss Borg, her step-mother, sends her to a finishing school which she believes ultra-cor-rect.

The school, however, has been about to close. Miss Patterson, headmistress and a former vaudeville star, is persuaded by Frawley, an actor out of a job, to keep it open for the one prospective pupil. Frawley’s plan is to star Eleanore in a "school show,” invite her father, and land Hollywood contracts for himself and his whole troupe. The vaudeville performers go into action! -chorus girls pose as students, actors pose as professors. Eleanore, arrived at the school, proceeds to fall in love with Cummings, a songwriter who is “Professor of Music” in the plot. “Three Cheers for Hove” introduces a number of songs which moved ;to the. hit classification as soon as the show was released. The ballroom dance staged, by Miss 'Whitney and Cummings in one sequence, the “Swing-Along.” is proving a nationwide sensation.