STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 December 1938, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

‘•ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND." Periodically Hollywood produces a picture that stands out as a beacon along the highroad of motion picture progress—and such a picture is Darryl F. Zanuck’s production of Irving Berlin’s great saga of three decades in the march of America. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” a great picture which will open at the State Theatre tonight at 8 o’clock was chosen by Amalgamated Theatres Ltd. to open the two new ultra-modern theatres of New Zealand, namely the King’s Theatre, Wellington, and the State Theatre, Christchurch. The film casts the principal characters as members of a fictitious Alexander’s Ragtime Band—and lets them do just about what the members of a real band would have done. In the bewildering brilliance of “Alexander” one remembers that Tyronne Power starts with a small band in a honky-tonk. Don Ameche writes the tunes which Alice Faye sings. Love smolders, flares, cools, blows up and is rekindled over the years for Tyronne and Alice. History moves before the eyes with the reminiscent melodies of Berlin as a gentle guide through the plot. Such a story framework —the career of a young musician and the girl who sang the nation’s love songs —two hotheads quarreling and parting, forgiving and finding love again through the music that was their life—is novel and scintillating. Darryl F. Zanuck sent in with his stars a brilliant cast—Ethel Merman, Jack Haley, Jean Hersholt, Helen Westley, John Carradine, Paul Hurst, Wally Vernon, Ruth Terry and a dozen others of like calibre. Alice Faye never was more beautiful nor did she ever sing or perform with greater effect. Tyronne Power and Don Ameche are equally tremendous in vividly contrasting portrayals. Ethel Merman, handles a role with her usual spirit. Jack Haley and Chick Chandler lend a pleasant comedy touch as members of the band and later as soldier pals of Tyrone’s. An excellent supporting programme includes a splendid 20th Century-Fox Magic Carpet in technicolour entitled “Land of Contentment,” an outstanding film on New Zealand, and “What Every Boy Should Know,” a short by Lew Lehr, Fox newsreel comedy king.