STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 October 1940, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“ALL AT SEA.” Sandy Powell, as Able Seaman Skipton, provides a great deal of fun —and many tense'situations —in “All at Sea,” the Gaumont-British film which will be shown tonight at the State Theatre. The large audience last night were enthusiastic over the high, standard of the film. Powell is supported by the very attractive Kay Walsh, the inimitable Gus McLaughton, John Warwick and Leslie Perrins. Sandy Skipton, whose general attitude to life is so carefree that he seldom keeps a job for long, is messenger in a great chemical factory when the story opens. Some balancing experiments with glass flasks and a rather cavalier manner with managers and ink-bottles, earn him dismissal once more, but not before he has made the acquaintance and friendship of Miss Miles (Kay Walsh), who, with her father, has invented a new and tremendously powerful explosive. Sandy, casual as usual, does his last job for the firm by conveying the precious cylinder of explosive to the strongroom and then leaving the wrong parcel behind. With enough explosive in his trouser pocket to sink a battleship, he returns to his grim-faced landlady, who only puts up with his shiftless ways because she hopes that somehow, someday, she might be paid her back rent. She suggests that he gets a job in the stage presentation of "Lads in Blue” at the local cinema soon to be re-opened. Unfortunately, the Navy recruiting office is in the same district, and Sandy joins the Navy without realising what he has done till too late. All this while, the crooked factory manager and his assistant. and the proprietor of the factory, are hunting for Sandy—the manager and his assistant in order to be able to i sell the explosive to a foreign Power, the proprietor in order to manufacture : t for the Government. But Sandy rather likes the Navy, and till he sees Miss Miles's distress, has quite forgotten about he mislaid a cylinder. When he does produce it from his kit-bag. he innocently gives it to the wrong man. Then starts the hunt to recover it, with, Sandy and Gus in many an awkward predicament, but triumphant in the end. Along with "All at Sea” go a number of very interesting supports, the best of which is a "March of Time”' of Canada at war and "The Battle for Britain.” i