REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“SECOND BEST BED.” The “Second Best Bed,” will be finally shown tonight. “BIG CITY." The stars of “The Good Earth” and “Captains Courageous,” respectively, are united in the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, “Big City,” which opens Saturday at the Regent Theatre, with Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy costarred for the first time. The new picture, presenting a cross-section of American metropolitan life, with. Tracy as a New York taxi-cab driver who becomes involved in a war between rival taxicab companies, and Miss Rainer as his immigrant wife whom he barely saves from deportation, is from the pen of Norman Krasna, the brilliant young playwright whose “Fury” was considered one of the outstanding photoplays of last year. The veteran character actor, Charley Grapewin, heads the supporting cast of “Big City” and other wcpl-known names in prominent roles include Janet Beecher, Eddie Quillan, Victor Varconi, Oscar O’Shea, Helen Troy, William Demarest, John Arledge, Irving Bacon, Guinn Williams and Regis Toomey. Also of interest is the appearance in a realistic free-for-all street battle sequences of the story of such noted names of the sports world as Jack Dempsey, James J. Jeffries. Jimmy McLarnin, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jim Thorpe, Frank Wykoff, Jackie Fields, Man Mountain Dean and Bull Montana. One of the picture’s scenes is laid in Jack Dempsey’s restaurant, the famous gathering place of sports celebrities having been copied to the last detail. In “Big City” Luise Rainer once again demonstrates her brilliant flair for versatality in acting. Her new role places her as a simple Roumanian girl who has left her fatherland to come to America, where she falls in love with a rough and ready taxicab driver only to be' precipitated into a dramatic catastrophe.