STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1941, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“THE GAY CABALLERO.”

The splendid double programme “The Gay Caballero” and “Pier 13” will be finally shown tonight.

THE RAMPARTS WE WATCH.”

“The March of Time” films distributed by R.K.O. jumped into prominence and public favour because they dealt seriously and intelligently with some one topic of current importance in each release. But up to the present they have been short films. Tomorrow night “The March of Time” makes its bow as a full-length feature film, “Ramparts We Watch.” The cast comprises the people of the United States of America and the setting is the world at War. The film sets out, by means of cleverly interwoven newsreel shorts, and re-enacted scenes, to show how in ; evitably America was drawn into direct intervention in the last European war, and suggests that a similar moving pattern of personal feeling and world circumstance will again draw America into direct participation in European war. If the newsreel pieces, dating back to before the last war, were merely strung together without order or»commentary—which is far from being the case—the result would have considerable interest as a curiosity of history. But done with all the resources of the “March of Time” organisation, it becomes a compelling argument which would be hard to resist. And as the wheel turns a full circle again the same people—not only a new generation, but the generation that were men and women in 1914-18 —find themselves again confronted with a Europe at war, drawing them in irresistibly. Almost forgotten incidents, people long dead, statesmen and ordinary men and women, come alive again on the screen, but always to tell- the same story of reluctance, followed by resignation to the inevitable. Of special interest is the inclusion of a large section of the Nazimade neutral-fright-ening “blotzreig” film, which was intended by the Germans as a terrible warning to small nations not wishing to accept the “protection” of the Third Reich. Before the Battle of Britain it would have been effective, now in parts it seems sadly blown upon. This is the film which the Germans unsuccessfully hawked round the American distributors, breathing bluster, and then had to threaten reprisals when ‘•March of Time” grafted it into their anti-Nazi-“Rampart.” The whole show is too good to be missed.