REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 May 1940, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“LISTEN, DARLING.” When a couple of imaginative persons set out to find a husband for a girl’s mother, anything can happen and does in "Listen, Darling,” which is a story embracing just that situation. It will be shown tonight at the Regent Theatre and furnished one of the laugh feasts of the season. The story concerns the efforts made by a romantic girl, “Pinkie” Wingate (Judy Garland) added by her youthful boy friend, "Buzz” Mitchell (Freddie Bartholomew), to prevent her mother from marrying the village banker, whom she considers an unsuitable choice. Their wild schemes and the hilarious resulting complications provide many amusing sequences. Judy Garland sings "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart,” "On the Bump?/ Road to Love,” and “Ten Tins in the Sky.” Featuring Freddie Bartholomew and Judy Garland with Mary Astor as the mother whose romance they attempt to guide, it is a gem of nonsense with laughs galore, interrupted only by choice serious bits that provide relief with pathos and effective tugs at the heart strings. Alan Hale, Walter Pidgeon and Gene Lockhart form the trio of would-be suitors who fall victim to the plans of Freddie and Judy and what they go through is plenty. The picture gets off to a terrific pace when the kids, in their eagerness to get Mary away from the town banker (Lockhart), lock Mary in a trailer and “kidnap” her. Unfortunately, they take along little Scotty Beckett, who more than once throws everyone and everything into a state of laughable confusion before Walter Pidgeon and Mary finally fall in love. A splendid array of featurettes of a wide and varied nature support the feature and round off a great evening’s entertainment.