REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 November 1939, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

"THE SUN NEVER SETS." Americans are usually credited with being cynical of the Britisher's sense of duty to the Empire. But in "The Sun Never Sets,” which opened its Masterton season before a packed house in the Regent Theatre on Saturday night, the American film company, New Universal, in constructing a powerful, finely-acted drama of colonial administration, has paid an eloquent tribute to the men who go into voluntary exile at the outposts of tiie Empire. “The Sun Never Sets” with Douglas Fairbanks Junr., Basil Rathbone and Charles Aubrey Smith in leading parts is a motion picture of the same calibre and similar theme as "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” which, it will be remembered, had a record season in Masterton two or three years ago. Rathbone takes the part of the elder brother in the Randolph family, which, since the days of Elizabeth, has been famous in colonial affairs. He is devoted to the service but his younger brother (Douglas Fairbanks Junr.), rebels at entering it, vowing that he will give his future wife something better than “a flyblown bungalow in the tropics.” However, he eventually joins his brother on the Gold Coast, where they discover signs of Nazi activity. Simultaneously, an unidentified radio station begins sowing cabotage among the nations of the world, and defies location. Interwoven with this international political background is a human story of the lives of the Randolphs. One does not need a vivid imagination to picture this plot in real life. It is a picture that can be warmly recommended as the acting is of a high standard and the theme one which appeals.