REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1938, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“MERRILY WE LIVE.” Constance Bennett and Brian Aherne are co-starred in “Merrily We Live,” which will be finally shown tonight. 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 and Patsy Kelly, one of the screen's foremost comediennes, romps through the role of a cook in the Kilbourne establishment. “YELLOW JACK.” “Yellow Jack,” which will be shown on Thursday and Friday at the Regent Theatre, is one of those interesting. American stories which dramatise the' march of medical research, giving a personal effect to the sacrifices of those who risk their lives for others. The stars are Robert Montgomery and Virginia Bruce, who as sergeant in a medical corps and nurse respectively, give the human interest in the fight put up by the United States Army medical officers against the dreaded yellow fever which at the time the story opens was looked upon as utterly beyond the reach of medicine. Lewis Stone, as the medical officer, is in a typically impressive role. Havana is the spot where the army is dying off like flies. Languorous nights, golden moons, and the native music merely emphasise the tragedy of the loss of man after man, until the victims are numbered by thousands. The love jiffair of the sergeant and the nurse proceeds apace, if stormily. He is rough and uncultured, she dainty and educated. Painstaking research into the past, and numerous experiments leave the head of the medical corps no wiser, and the fever still triumphant. There is no germ that can be found, and it is only after meeting a discredited island doctor, who has solved the secret in the bite of one particular mosquito out of 800 species which frequent the island, that he is put on the right track. Humour, pathos, and horseplay run side by side with a powerful drama when volunteers are called for to submit to tests which will prove the truth of the discovery. Supports include a Swedish scenic, a racecourse comedy, and a cartoon, while the gazette shows the first meeting of Chamberlain and Hitler.

At the children’s matinee tomorrow afternoon every child will receive a gift.