REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 January 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

‘•MANPROOF." A light social drama in which witty conversation and the ultra-modern “streamlined" type of acting play big parts, “Manproof," now showing at 1 the Regent Theatre, is bound to keep its audiences amused and entertained. It is not really a comedy, although it is exceptionally bright, with the drama in it not too heavily emphasised. Handled by the wrong actors, it might have become rather boring at times, as it approximates more to the stage play than does the usual screen story. The cast is headed by Myrna Loy. Franchot Tone. Rosalind Russell and Walter Pidgeon. Famous for her portrayals as the ideal American wife. Miss Loy now deviates from her usual roles to play a single woman whose man is stolen by a rival. In lavish settings of metropolitan flavour, .Miss Loy appears as a newspaper artist in love with a social climber, Walter Pidgeon. Pidgeon weds an heiress, Rosalind Russell, instead. and they leave on their honeymoon. Franchot Tone, a cartoonist, secretly loves Miss Loy but will not admit it to her. They remain “pals.” Miss Loy temporarily forgets her defeat until the honeymooners return, when she renews her siege. The wife, Rosalind Russell, finds her husband in Miss Loy’s rooms and offers him a divorce. As he will lose his soft job with his wife’s rich father, he declines the divorce. Miss Loy at last realises the foolishness of her infatuation for the married man. She and Tone pledge to remain “pals,” but her mother knows they are in love. The supports include newsreels on the European situation, a colour travelogue of the Paris Exposition, and a bright and musical comedy entitled “The Magician’s Daughter.”