REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“KING OF CHINATOWN.” 'Anna May Wong, filmdom’s favourite Chinese actress, gets mixed up with gangland’s worst hoodlums and comes out the winner once again in her latest picture, “King of Chinatown,” which will be finally shown tonight at the Regent Theatre. “MIDNIGHT.” “Midnight,” which has Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Francis Lederer, and John Barrymore at the head of its cast, is a sprightly comedy and its season at the Regent Theatre opening tomorrow may be anticipated with interest. This modern Cinderella story about a girl who is taken out of the rain by a taxi-man and pitchforked into the midst of wealthy society in the effort to escape him,' who finds herself engaged on a strange task of creating a triangle to order, has the authentic note of comedy which was present in such films as “It Happened One Night” and “She Met Him in Paris,” and it turns unexpected corners and reveals new angles at every development. Once again the film is played out before a Parisian background, with a Hungarian baron, a champagne millionaire, a pawn ticket from Monte Carlo, an American chorus, and the whole raft of the taxi-drivers of Paris as important items in the plot. The weather helps, too, for it was the weather which drove Eve Peabody, alone and baggageless in Paris after a Monte Carlo disaster, to make a deal with taxidriver Czerny to take her around the night clubs in the effort to get a job, and it was the weather which allowed her to gate-crash a party when Czerny threatened to complicate her life too greatly. There are any number of good scenes; the moment at the party when Eve thinks she has been discovered, the moment when the fairy coach, ordered by fairy-godfathei’ John Barrymore, brings her a wardrobe, the time when Baron Czerny, saves the “Baroness” from embarrassment, the telephone conversation with the . imaginary child with the measles,’ the court trial for divorce with its unexpected ending. The movie shows Claudette Colbert in her best vein, it brings Don Ameche one of his likeable parts, Francis Lederer an opportunity to play the part of a young man about town to whom life is one romance after another, John Barrymore, that quizzical, desensitised role he knows so well. And the supporting roles are ably filled by such actresses as Mary Astor and the Elaine Barrie who became Mrs Barrymore. It is a film which moves fast and has dialogue written neatly and fluently, and it lacks nothing in the way of- expensiveness in background and dressing. Altogether -Midnight” is one of those movies which make one glad to have left home to see them.