STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1940, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“I WAS A SPY.” The great British picture of the true life story of Martha McKenna, "I Was a Spy.” will be shown at the State Theatre tonight. The picture features Conrad Veidt, Madeline Carroll, Herbert Marshall, Sir Gerald Du Maurier Edmund Gwenn, and a sterling cast. In its essentials the story has all the simplicity of greatness. It tells the true, emotional history of the young Belgian woman. Martha McKenna, who, with her parents, was in the town of Roulers in 1915, after the Germans had occupied it to make it a base behind the lines. In a particular scene among German wounded installed in the market place, the woman’s slight medical training and her personal instinct show in her demeanour, and she is engaged by the medical authorities to serve in the hospital. Her untiring work there becomes invaluable. But still she is a Belgian, and lives among her townsfolk. When her aunt in the intelligence service of the Allies takes brief refuge in her home, Martha helps her in furtive missions, and gradually accepts her destiny to become a unit in the machine —soon a very important unit, although, until near the end, an unobtrusive one. Her immediate superior in the hospital is also in the service. Martha sends information, for instance, of an outdoor mass religious service of the troops and she risks the fate of the thousands of soldiers whom she is among when they are caught unawares. and heavily bombed by Allied planes. The outstanding murder mystery, “The Crowd Look On,” will also be shown. “REBECCA.” The most-talked of picture for a long time, and which has broken box office records, “Rebecca," will be shown, on Friday night. This picture is claimed by the management to be a greater triumph than “Gone With the Wind," and tells a story that will be long remembered for the brilliance of its theme and its acting.