ENTERTAINMENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20911, 16 September 1939, Page 3

ENTERTAINMENTS

CURRENT PROGRAMMES “TAILSPIN” AT THE CIVIC THEATRE | “Tailspin,” which will head the ' new programme to-day, tells in thrilling fashion of the part that women have long since come to play in the field of aviation. Alice Faye has the leading part as a girl who leaves a position in a night club in order to enter for an air race for women, and gives a fine portrayal of a woman who does not allow minor scruples to in- ' terfere with her great ambition. The drama does not go smoothly on, however, and the story traces the whole of the triumphs and tragedies of this dangerous profession before the j climax is reached. The film includes some of the most thrilling flying ever seen on the screen, with powerful racing planes, roaring, zooming and hurtling through space with danger on every turn, and courageous pilots, : parachuting to safety from a plane, • plunging, diving, crashing in flames. It ' is a screen story by Frank Wead, the man who wrote ‘'Hell’s Divers,” “DlrigI ibie,” and “'Ceiling Zero.” Nancy ' Kelly, Constance Bennett and Charles ' Farrell have strong supporting roles. “HUCKLEBERRY FINN” AT TH'E REGENT THEATRE Mark Twain’s widely-read story, “Huckleberry Finn,” has been brought ! to the screen very successfully. It tells I how Huckleberry Finn, son of “Pap” I Finn, a drunken sot, is cared for by the Widow Douglas and her sister, i Miss Watson, who love the boy, in 1 “Huckleberry 'Finn,” to be screened I to-morrow. They live in a small i village on the Mississippi in the days | before the Civil War. Jim, a slave i owned by the widow, is a good friend i of llluck. muck plays hookey from ! school, smokes a pipe secretly, has i his own quaint philosophy. The ! father of the boy, knowing that the 1 widow loves iiuck, demands 800 dol- ! lars of her, threatening otherwise to ! take him away. Huck decides to run away, and the story works up -to an exciting climax. In the supporting programme are “Poetry of Nature,” a Pete Smith ( specialty; “Joy Scouts,” an Our Gang ! comedy; “The Bear that Couldn’t 1 Sleep,” a coloured Symphony; the i Cinesound Review and the British Air Mail News. “RACKETEERS OF THE RANGE” AT THE V- *\ ' George O’Brien, famous for his stalwart characterisations, is said to have 1 an opportunity to display to the fullest | his skill at roping, riding and lighting in his latest Western “Racketeers of the Range.” The popular outdoor star is seen as a courageous rancher who single-handedly frustrates the ofTorts of an unscrupulous packing company to victimise a group of cattle- | men. 'Fist-fights, hard riding and

fast shooting are plentifully interpersed in the high-speed action. Marjorie Reynolds, Chill Wills, Gay Sea- J brook, Frank Marvin, Ray Whitley and Robert Riske have supporting roles. The plot of “Broadway Musketeers” starts with a reunion of three girls who were brought up together in an orphan asylum, and then it follows their strangely interwoven fortune*, which lead one to dishonour and death, and the other two to dearly won happiness. “MEN WITH WINGS” AT THE ROXY THEATRE “Men With Wings,” in technicolour, and “Three Blind Mice,” featuring Joel McCrea and Loretta Young, will be screened to-day. The first great aviation picture ever to be filmed in Technicolour is the panoramic history of flight, “Men With Wings.” It traces the history of aviation from the dawn of the twentieth century, when the Wright 'Brothers made their never-to-be-forgotten flight, down to the present day of luxury airliners, round-the-world flights, super-bombers and transAtlantic transportation. Fred MacMurray, Ray Milland and Louise Campbell were seen as the three modern pioneers who devote their lives to j furthering man’s conquest of the skies. “Three Blind Mice” is a delightful comedy-drama, with an interesting story and a very charming romance. ‘BULLDOG’S DRUMMOND’S POLICE’ AT THE THEATRE ROYAL Scotland Yard’s work is done for it by “Bulldog Drummond” and a small circle of his wedding guests in “Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police.” As the title suggests John Howard, playing the clever “Drummond,” forges his adventure-iovirig companions into a private detective force, when the discovery of fabulous buried treasure under his castle brings a desperate killer into their midst. The murder of an eminent scientist, who alone knows the location of the treasure and the theft of his secret code, brings about the postponement of “Drummond’s” oft-delayed wedding and a thrilling search through mysterious | underground vaults. The laughs, joys and heart-breaks of modern family life, with the screen's maddest menage occupying the spotlight, move the plot of a new comedy, “Boy Trouble,” which brings Mary Boland, Charles Rugigles and a dozen other favourites back again. EVENING OF PLAYS “Two Gentlemen of Soho,” the play that w*on the drama festival in Hamilton recently—and deserved to win, for it was an outstanding production —-win be staged at the Winter Show Hall next Thursday night, on behalf of the fund to send the winning team to cogipete at Palmerston North W in the na1 • “The Pilgrim,” wfsjch^.worithe second prize at the festival, entertaining first act of ‘‘Home and Beauty” will also be staged-

The whirligig beetle h&s\ dlvlded e ? es —the lower half is usedV^, f sseeing . ng under water, and the upper hshfcvi* lOr vision in the air above.

[African big game hunters regard the buffalo as the most dangerous animal ( because of the venegeful relentlessness of its attack.

Jack Loreen, of Ran Francisco, bold* a strange record—for 119 days he w*a* a self-imposed prisoner in a wooden coffin 1