TRAINING SAILORS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 51, 2 March 1939, Page 5

TRAINING SAILORS

“BOY FROM BARNARDOS” MAJESTIC THEATRE ATTRACTION

The rania of the British Merchant Marine serves to team Freddie Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney in a gripping story in “The Boy from Barnardos," a story of England's future sailors, which opens on Saturday at the Majestic. Theatre.

Ils locale, the Russell-Coles Nautical School, one of the famous English institutions grouped in the Barnardo Homes where orphans are trained for the future, the new picture depicts Freddie as a youngster, the tool of crooks, represented as a scion of nobility, who is taken from his dishonest guardians and trained at the school.

Mickey Rooner plays the student petty officer who is first Freddie’s Nemesis, later his friend, as the spoiled boy finds loyalty and regeneration. Intimate details of the training of the boys, their, athletic meets, mast-climbing contests, annual boat race, and their final graduation to places abroad the Queen Mary form a background against which a story of sacrifice and hate, loyalty and regeneration is played. Both youngsters are excellent in their roles. Sam Wood, who directed “Navy Blue and Gold," directed the new story with deft skill and many delicate human touches. Freddie is convincing and his role highly dramatic. He and Mickey stage a vicious fight in the course of the action. The veteran stage star, Charles Coburn, plays the superintenent of the school with dignity and conviction. The two crooks are played by Gale Sondergaard and Jonathan Hale, and a new child is introduced in TerryKilburn, English boy actor.

Among the players are Herbert Mundin, Peter Lawford, Walter Tetley, Peter Ellis, George Zucco, Matthew Boulton, John Burtin, Emma Dunn, Monty Woolley, and Walter Kingsford. Authentic details provide replicas of the Russell-Cotes Nautical School and the Barnardo Homes in England.