STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 June 1940, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“SHIPYARD SALLY.” Gracie Fields is with us again! The jovial queen of comedy, toast of Britain and the Continent, returns to the screen in a new film in which she sings and dances as only she can. It’s “Shipyard Sally,” 20 th Century-Fox release, in which she is starred with Sydney, Howard. This will be screened for a return season, by public demand, at the State Theatre tonight. Directed by famed Monty Banks, from a screen play by Karl Tunberg and Don Ettlinger, the film gives Gracie the background she likes best —the working class of England. Herself born of impoverished parents in the smoky mill town of Rochdale in Lancashire, Gracie is the idol <of the commoners and is considered by them the best of Rochdale’s two great contributions to the world. The other, you may remember, is the consumers’ co-operative movement, started by the town's weavers more than a hundred years ago. This time Gracia’s the unexpected proprietor of a pub in Clydebank, the shipbuilding centre of Scotland. Unexpected. because until her erratic father (played by Sydney Howard) invested! all her savings in the tavern, he and Gracie had been barnstorming the isles as a music hall team. She soon becomes! the fast friend of the shipbuilders, practically the blooming queen of the shipyards, and when Gracie gels up steam it's time for all good sailors to beware. She sings, she dances and she cuts up generally. It is a most suitable picture for the present time.

The associate feature is "The Missing People,” presenting Will Fyffe as "Mr Reeder.” He is again surrounded by a strong cast, which includes Lyn Harding, Kay Walsh, Ronald Shiner, Patricia Roc, Anthony Holies, Reginald Purdell and O. B. Clarence. Mr Reeder is set the task of clearing up a number of mysterious disappearances that have been taking place over a period of some months. He discovers a link between them all —the fact that they

were all lonely people who had received money by registered post each month, and whose remittances stopped immediately they disappeared. Lyn Harding and Anthony Holies play the parts of the two brothers Branstone, Patricia Roc is seen as Doris Bevan, marked down as the next victim, but saved by the astuteness of Mr Reeder; Ronald Adam has the part of Surtees, the blind secretary; and Ronald Shiner the redoubtable Sam Hackett, the exconvict, who is unconsciously instrumental in getting Mr Reeder out of the hands of the murderers. “The Missing People,” will be found to contain all the popular ingredients that made “The Mind of Mr Reeder” such acceptable fare.