REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

‘•THE SUN NEVER SETS.” “The Sun Never Sets,” an Empire picture reflecting the life and books of such Empire-minded Englishmen as Sir Harry Johnston, and in key with the Kipling ideal, will be shown tonight at the Regent Theatre. The picture is outstanding both for its tribute to English Imperial tradition and for its entertainment value. Entertainment value is a thing that a picture cannot do without, and therefore an imaginative Nazi nest .of infamy is set up in British Africa and is most sensationally bombed out of existence, with devastating effect to everybody except the hero (Douglas Fairbanks. Junr.. who has come through this kind of scrape before). But, with every concession to thrill and to "action,” “The Sun Never Sets” remains a picture with a purpose, and a constructive purpose. It shows how the Empire in coloured tropical regions is still being built up in the spirit of Kipling’s "Song of the English,” not by territorial additions but with the blood and tears of Englishmen and Englishwomen who undergo long exile in difficult climates, sometimes paying with their lives. Three generations of the Randolph family (dedicated to colonial service since the day of Robert Clive) are shown in the picture, and a fourth is born dead on the Gold Coast at peril of the mother’s life. Young John Randolph (Douglas Fairbanks Junr.) opens the picture as a rebel against the family tradition of Empire service and exile, and is tamed by the example of his elder brother (played by Basil Rathbone) and by his old Empire-bro-ken but unyielding grandfather, Sir John Randolph, played with sure touch by C. Aubrey Smith. Barbara O’Neil and Virginia Field and Mary Forbes work out the women’s side of the Empire sacrifice. Those picture-goers who want anti-Nazism served hot will find a pretty villain in Zurof (played by Lionel Atwill) and the bombing of Zurof's African stronghold,, with its secret radio, is an air-thrill masterpiece. In fact, "The Sun Never Sets” lias something to meet all tastes, but the high Empire purpose of the picture remains, and such pictures are to be encouraged. Outstanding featurettes complete a presentation of which the management feels justly proud.