REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1938, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“THE TEXANS.” The first motion picture epic to deal with the reconstruction in the south since D. W. Griffiths made motion picture history with “The Birth of a Nation,” back in 1915, Paramount’s “The Texans,” is showing at. the Regent Theatre tonight. 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 ol the entire South during the post-wai 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 homecoming Confederate soldier, who devotes everything to the building up ol a new Texas on the ruins of the old. There is a strong supporting cast. “MERRILY VZE LIVE.” Constance Bennett and Brian Aherne are co-starred for the first time in the new Hal Roach-M.G.M. production, “Merrily We Live,” which comes to the Regent Theatre on Saturday. Billie Burke has the role of Mrs Kilbourne, a philanthropist, whose specialty is the reformation of hoboes who call at her door. Alan Mowbray is cast as a butler; Patsy Kelly, one of the screen’s foremost comediennes, romps through the role of a cook in the Kilbourne establishment. Her life is made hecti'c through the enthusiasms of Mrs Kilbourne for her newly-discovered tramps and through the butler’s disgust at these humanitarian endeavours. In the role of a Senator’s daughter 'whose predatory eye setles upon Miss Bennett’s romantic interest in the film is Ann Dvorak. Bonita Granville, not entirely grown-up, but wearing her first floor-length dinner gown in the picture, plays the “kid sister” in the Kilbourne family. She augments her allowance by threats of blackmail and sells petty secrets between members of the family for fancy prices. Tom Brown is the “kid brother,” whose growing up passes unnoticed by other members of his family.