STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1940, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

■•THE CISCO KID & THE LADY." • “The Cisco Kid and the Lady” and "Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence,” will be finally shown at the State Theatre tonight. "THE RAINS CAME.” Even Hollywood, commanding as it does unlimited resources for the complete equipment of any enterprise which it cares to undertake, must sometimes stand intimidated. No producer could without immense care, preparation and the most thorough organisation attempt to transfer to the screen the story, the atmosphere, and the meaning and message of so compelling a narrative as Louis Bromfield’s great novel, “The Rains Came.” The prospect must have been almost forbidding, for fear that the screen might find difficulty in doing justice to so outstanding a novel. Yet, in the result, nothing less than justice has been done. The film, ‘“The Rains Came,” which will be shown tomorrow night,” is all in celluloid that so notable a book can be said to warrant; and, because it matches on the screen what Louis Bromfield achieved in writing, the picture must rank as a triumph of production. “The Rains Came” is an immense picture; it presents human emotions, human hopes and motives on a scale no less vast than that of the forces of nature which it likewise so sweepingly portrays. And it is, too, a brilliant picture. It is acted. with polished artistry by a notable cast. Faithful in mood and detail to the book, “The Rains Came” preserves all of Bromfield’s characters. Myrna Loy breaks with the “perfect wife” tradition to play the amorous Lady Edwina Esketh; Tyrone Power has his most romantic role as the highcaste Hindu surgeon, Major Rama Safti, who proves the one great love of Lady Esketh’s like; and George Brent is seen as the worldly Tom Ransome, a ghost out of the lady’s romance strewn past. Brenda Joyce, discovered by starmaker Zanuck as the climax of a nation-wide search, heads a brilliant supporting cast in the role of Fern Simon, the fresh, young beauty whose love gives the world-weary Ransome a new lease if life. Others who bring Bromfield’s colourful characters to life are Nigel Bruce as Lord Esketh; Maria Ouspenskaya as the Maharani; Joseph Schildkraut as Mr Bannerjee; Mary Nash, as Miss MacDaid; Jane Darwell as Aunt Phoebe Smiley; Marjorie Rambeau as Mrs Simon; Henry Travers as the Rev. Homer Smiley and H. B. Warner as the Maharajah. “BATTLE FLEETS OF ENGLAND.” There will be showmat the State Theatre tomorrow night in conjunction with “The Rains Came,” the latest and greatest March of Time, “The Battle Fleets of England,” a twenty minute picture of tremendous interest —showing pictures of the fleet never seen before. The box plans are now open and it' costs no more to book for Friday’s magnificent programme.