STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1941, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT” The heroic sacrifice of a daughter who throws away her future and freedom for the sake of her mother’s happiness and her father’s welfare is the dramatic basis of “A Bill of Divorcement,” which will be shown tonight at the State Theatre. Featuring Maureen O’Hara, Adolphe Menjou, Fay Bainter and Herbert Marshall, the story revolves around the tragic figure of a man who returns from obscurity after a long mental illness to find his wife has divorced him and is preparing to marry another man. His grown daughter is a stranger to him and she likewise is planning to marry. How the pitiful man disrupts the entire household by pleading to remain in his own home, and how the daughter, realising for the .first time that her blood is stained with hereditary mental unsoundness, sacrifices her own love that her mother may have happiness and her father companionship, make for the poignant, powerful drama of the plot. Maureen O’Hara, sensational new discovery who recently scored opposite Charles Laughton in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” portrays the distraught young daughter, Menjou is seen as the pathetic father, Miss Bainter as the wife and Herbert Marshall as her determined suitor. Other important parts are interpreted by Dame May Whitty, Patrie Knowles, C. Aubrey Smith, and Ernest Cossart. An excellent programme of supports include a Walt Disney picture, “Donald Duck Steps Out,” a colour traveltalk “Springtime in Australia,” a sports thrill comedy and the latest Airmail News.