REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 December 1938, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“SUBMARINE D. 1.”

The noted picture, “Submarine D. 1.,” will be finally shown tonight.

“THE TEXANS.”

The first motion picture epic to deal with the reconstruction in the south since D. W. Griffiths made njotion picture history with “The Birth of a Nation,” back in 1915, Paramount’s “The Texans,” is showing at the Regent Theatre from tomorrow. In tracing the fortunes of a typical Texas family, beginning with the return of the men from battle in 1865, “The Texans” symbolises the tragic and moving story of the entire South during the post-war years. At the head of the cast, Joan Bennett is a tempestuous Dixie belle, who refuses to submit to Northern rule and insists that the “great cause” is not lost, while Randolph Scott is a homecoining Confederate soldier, who devotes everything to the building up of a new Texas on the ruins of the old. Although Miss Bennett is all for starting a new uprising, Scott convinces her that she should devote her energies to constructive work, and together they lead a great cattle cavalcade through the vzilds of Texas and Oklahoma into thriving Kansas, where the new railroad provides them with a ready market for their steers. Joan Bennett has the responsibility for carrying on the dramatic acting tradition of one of the “royal families” of the American theatre. Now that her famous father, Richard, the great matinee idol of his day, has retired, her sister, Barbara, has deserted the stage for her household duties as the wife of singer Morton Downey, and her other sister, Constance, is devoting herself exclusively to farcial comedy roles, the dramatic reputation of the family lies completely in the hands of Joan Bennett. A compartive newcomer to Hollywood, she got her first screen role playing opposite Ronald Colman in the first of the famous mystery series, ::Bulldog Drummond.” She was seen recently in “13 Hours by Air,” and “I Met My Love Again,”