REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“THE GIRL DOWNSTAIRS.” Gay, whimsical comedy forms the background for the romantic story of “The Girl Downstairs,” starring Franciska Gaal and Franchot Tone, which will be shown tonight. After two previous American films —“The Buccaneer” and “Paris Honeymoon”— the versatile Miss Gaal is given an entertainment medium of the type in which she excels. As a star of the European stage and screen Franciska Gaal appeared in a succession of hits that ranged from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” to European versions of such American successes as “Good News,” but it was in these happy, light tongue-in-cheek romances that she made her greatest impressions. The supporting cast in “The Girl Downstairs” includes Walter Connolly, Reginald Gardiner, Rita Johnson, Reginald Owen and Franklin Pangborn. Franchot Tone appears as the cosmopolitan architect who falls lightly in love with Rita Johnson only to transfer his affections to the scullery maid working in her home. Walter Connolly, as Miss Johnson’s apoplectic father, endeavours to keep Tone away from his daughter but the youth poses as a 4 chauffeur and gains admission. In that guise he encounters the maid who promptly falls in love with him. She gathers her savings together and buys him a taxicab, with more than half a mind on their future. The cavalier discovers that his affections have definitely turned to the girl below stairs, which brings on a series of ludicrous complications. Miss Gaal sings one song, “When You’re in Love,” written especially for her. Saturday night’s programme will be headed by that great picture, “Huckleberry Finn,” starring Mickey Rooney.